


Fix Me, I'm Broken

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alpha!Sam, Awesome Bobby Singer, Hurt!Sam, John Winchester is a bastard-or is he?-and Sam wants to kill him, Knotting, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Sick!Dean, Swearing, gratuitous use of the word fuck, mildly graphic birth, mpreg!Dean, omega!dean, protective!Sam, sick!Sam, underage-but only just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-31 22:19:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3995092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John expected his eldest son to present as an Alpha, like himself, but when Dean turns out to be an Omega, there's more than just disappointment in John's eyes. Medication can take care of it, though, damp Dean's scent, mute his Omega instincts; and his heats...well, John can take care of those, too.</p><p>Sam hates listening from the room next door to what John is doing to his beloved older brother, and when Sam finally presents as the coveted Alpha, he fully intends to do something about it.</p><p>But are Sam's plans the best thing for Dean? Is there something John hasn't told them? Something deadly?  And will they find out soon enough that there are reasons for everything their father does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so...
> 
> #1 no sub/dom here, sorry, I don't care much for it and don't really get into it in my Alpha/Omega 'verse
> 
> #2 this is kind of a companion piece to 'All of You, For All of Me' as one of my lovely commenters once pointed out that Dean was practically built for all intents and purposes to be an Omega with the way he loved and cared for Sam, so this is for that person, who God bless me, I cannot find in my comments list, but hope she finds and enjoys. So the 'verse and history for the boys and John and Mary is very similar to that one, only here Sam is the Alpha, which frankly, is a complete game changer.
> 
> #3 seeing as how I've always felt Dean was definitely more dominant, this is a seriously new venture for me and I'm trying seriously hard not to screw it up, so. Any comments of any kind are absolutely welcome as to whether or not this is working for you
> 
> #4 I'm in DESPERATE need of a good, fitting pet name for Sam to use with Dean!!! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help me out here, people. I'll even write the winner a personalized fic if you want. That's how desperate I am. 
> 
> #5 The story may be over, but if anyone has any suggestions on Dean's pet name, I'l still take them! Please? :)))

Sam sat up in the backseat of the Impala, knuckling at the corners of his eyes and looked out the window. It was probably pushing late morning and it was raining steady and straight and the wipers' regular _whoosh-snik_ across the glass was the only sound in the car which was kind of unusual as Dad almost always had the radio on at least low to help pass the miles except when…

Sam scooted forward and leaned over the seat.

John spared him a glance and brittle half smile. 'Mornin'. Need a rest stop?'

'Soon,' Sam said, and looked into the passenger seat where his brother was squashed into the V between the seat and the door, face against the cold glass, hot breath fogging it in little irregular pants, his arms folded tightly around his middle, and his face taut and drawn in obvious pain.

'He okay?' Sam murmured, thinking Dean may be somewhere at the edges of sleep and therefore not in as much pain as he would be if he were fully awake, and he didn't want to bring him all the way around if he could avoid it, so he kept his voice low.

John glanced at his older son in the shotgun seat beside him and frowned a little. 'He will be.'

'Migraine, again?' Sam asked.

John paused for half a heartbeat, an expression flickered across his brow that said he might have been thinking of telling his youngest the truth for once, but then gave a quick nod. 'Yeah. His meds aren't working like they used to.'

Sam turned his attention to Dean, deciding not to acknowledge the moment that John had been about to explain what was really going on with his big brother. Sam knew it wasn't migraines. He wasn't stupid. He did a good portion of the research for their hunts, so he was pretty well aware, after a little poking around, of what the symptoms of migraines were, and though a passerby might be fooled into believing it was a migraine, Sam had other ideas. 

John had Dean medicated, that Sam knew. He didn't know exactly what it was Dean was taking, though he had a few ideas there as well. What he did know was that it suppressed his brother's Omega scent and—so far—kept him from going into a full blown heat. 

For the last year and a half, every few months, Dean would get a bad 'migraine' and John would pretty much just have to dump them in a motel for three or four days because Dean was practically useless, doubled over with cramps that left him whimpering in his sleep and throwing up when they got really bad. Sam had done some research here as well and knew that this couldn't continue. Eventually, Dean _was_ going to go into heat and as long as John had been force suppressing it? It was going to be a bad one. If his brother even survived it. It was very unhealthy for an Omega to suppress their heat, on the order of 'might kill them in the end' unhealthy, and the black-market was the only place to find the drugs to do such a thing.

When Sam thought about the amount of money John must have dished out in recent years since Dean had presented as an Omega, it struck him as incredibly ironic how much he must love his son in order to spend his hard to come by cash on the little red pills Dean kept on him at all times; and how much he must hate him, too, to keep him on the medication that basically erased any traces of what Dean actually was.

John was an Alpha, and it was apparent to Sam, even at his tender age, that their father expected his eldest to present as nothing other than the same. In fact, John had been so sure Dean would be an Alpha that he was shocked almost to tears when just the opposite had occurred. The tears had quickly turned to disappointed, angry resentment when mingled with a half bottle of Jack, though; and since that day John had come into the motel room and stopped dead in his tracks at the new Omega scent hanging on his eldest son, he had never looked nor spoken to Dean in quite the same way again. 

That more than anything hurt and angered Sam. Sam was used to John's brush-offs. He was used to the hurt in John's eyes anytime he looked at his youngest son because Sam was a constant walking, living, breathing reminder that John's wife, Sam's mother, was dead. Died giving birth to Sam twelve years ago, and still the pain in John's gaze was acute even after all that time. He was accustomed to the gruffness and the lack of any real show of affection. It was what he'd grown up with, all he'd ever known from John, so it was okay.

But Dean had known John in a different time and place, and he had grown up for four years in the light and warmth of a family. Dean's devotion to John was because of those few short years, Sam was sure, because the man John was now—the cold, gruff, taciturn Hunter—did not in any way invite the kind of love and dedication that Dean still showed his father. Sam had an inkling that Dean's being an Omega had something to do with it as well. An Omega's base genetic code was written in a need to please others, especially an Alpha, and to nurture. Dean tried like hell to do the first with John, and he succeeded brilliantly at the second with Sam.

Sam wasn't lacking in love for all John's introverted ways and spare, gruff attempts at affection. Dean had imparted his memories of family and love to Sam in constant attention and physical contact, in cradling him close through nightmares and sickness, in fixing him noodles and sauce with extra garlic whenever he had a crappy day at school, in shacking up with him on snow days and watching re-runs of Star Trek and The Munsters for hours on end, in making sure to never let his birthday go by unacknowledged even if the only thing he could manage was a Hostess cupcake from the only gas station for a hundred miles with a match stuck in it for Sam to blow out. Dean took care of Sam. Dean picked up at the age of four where John could not; had cuddled and held a whimpering newborn pup in his lap for hours in the Impala's backseat; had fed him with infinite care and patience from a bottle when all the squirming underweight little ball of fluff wanted was his mother's own warm breast; had slept the long night of his first Change on the hard floor with a hand on Sam's flanks while he whimpered and howled and panted in pain until, just as dawn was breaking, Dean's bright green eyes had opened to look across the inches and see a mottled mosaic of blues and greens and golds smiling from beneath floppy brown curls set in a face with the deepest most brilliant dimples.

Dean having done all that, Sam wondered that John could possibly have expected his oldest son to present as anything other than an Omega.

'Dean?' Sam whispered softly. Softly enough that he wouldn't wake his brother if he was, in fact, sleeping at all.

Dean moaned and his head twitched just a little in acknowledgment before he pulled his arms even tighter around his middle and hunched forward around the pain of another cramp. 

Sam frowned. He'd never seen Dean this bad before. He reached out a hand and very, very gently dragged his fingertips across the short hair above Dean's ear. This elicited a soft whimper that Dean bit back, and then he pulled himself in tighter, away from Sam's touch, even though Sam could tell he didn't want to; but he was so starved for contact right now, that even the lightest stroke was going to send him over the edge.

'Leave him be, Sam,' John said. 

'…Yessir,' Sam answered and reluctantly sat back in the seat. He waited a few seconds and then looked into the rearview mirror. 'Can we stop soon, sir? I need the bathroom now.'

John's gaze flicked to the mirror, then over to Dean. 

'Dean?'

Dean miraculously managed to pull himself semi-upright at the sound of his father's voice and get his eyes open. '…Sir?' He couldn't help his slur of exhaustion.

'Not gonna dodge this one, are we?' John asked cryptically. 

Dean hunched up again, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched hard against his cramping belly. He gave a short, sharp shake of his head.

John nodded and his gaze went back to Sam's in the mirror. 'We'll stop at the next motel. Can you hold it that long?'

'Yessir.' Sam nodded. He would even if he couldn't, if it meant his brother got a place to curl up and rest in peace for a while.

——

John never sprang for two motel rooms. Too expensive and a waste of hard earned cash, he said. Sam always took a cot or the floor with his sleeping bag if John was staying with them, or the other bed when he didn't. Or more often than not, he wound up in bed with Dean, tangled around him until morning, whether John was there or not. So, he was shocked when John came back from the motel office with two sets of keys, one of which he tossed to Sam with instructions to take their stuff inside and get to cleaning the guns. He wrapped a broad hand around the back of Dean's neck then and dragged him out of the front seat.

'There's a diner across the street if you get hungry,' John indicated with a jerk of his chin. 'I'll…be a while with your brother.'

Sam nodded in numb acknowledgment and watched John half carry, half drag Dean to the room just off the corner of the motel's L shape, and then he heard the lock slide into place with a heavy, foreboding _thunk_.

Sam dragged the bags into the room and took possession of the bed furthest from the door. If John came back, he would want the one nearest. He always did. Dean did the same when it was just the two of them. Sam imagined that, at least with Dean, it was out of some want to protect him, to keep him those few seconds further from death if it came knocking at their door because of the work their father did. 

John was a Hunter for hire, a mercenary basically. He hunted things that went bump in the night: ghosts, vampires, warlocks, witches, even their own kind. Werewolves that had gone off the reservation, so to speak, brought in the most cash because the orders came from the Council, and they paid well to have one of their own put down when they got out of hand. Couldn't have them indiscriminately killing humans and drawing attention to themselves. He hunted humans on occasion, too. Those that had gotten too close to discovering their secret community, or those that were so deranged and dirty even other humans wanted them dead. 

John was one of the best Hunters out there, and he'd have gotten a lot more business over the years if he could have held still so he could be found, and if he could get a handle on his temper, or his attitude, or his drinking. None of those qualities particularly endeared him to anyone, including his own sons.

John had trained both Dean and Sam as Hunters as well. Not so much because he expected them to follow in his footsteps, but because they needed to know how to protect themselves against what was out there. Dean was well on his way to becoming as good or better than John, and Sam was proficient and could hold his own even at twelve, whether or not he would ever be as good as his father or brother.

A heavy thump on the other side of the paper thin walls separating their rooms made Sam raise his head from cleaning John's silver throwing knives. A whimper followed, then a high, pained whine.

John's voice came through muffled, and Sam couldn't understand all the words, but '…bend over…know this is what you need…the day would come I had to fuck my own son…' Sam cringed at the last and ducked his head down into his arms and covered his ears. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to hear any of it. Not the long, low cries that stripped from Dean's throat or the grunted growls that erupted from John, but he couldn't bring himself to leave either. He sat on the bed, ears covered, knees drawn up, and tried not to hear any more specific words, tried not to imagine Dean's ravaged face as John pounded into him, assuaging the building heat in his belly in the only way there was to do it. 

Sam gagged. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to run away, but his body was locked tight in fear, bound up with a need to stay and listen and be sure that his brother was all right when all of this was over. So he ground his teeth together and waited it out.

——

John didn't return that night or the next morning. 

Sam fell asleep on the bed, curled in a fetal ball, John's knives still strewn around him. He woke to gray light cutting through the inadequate motel curtains and the sound of more grunts and moans and pained keening through the walls. 

His growling stomach finally drove him across the street to the diner to grab a BLT and fries and bring them back to the room around noon during a lull in the noise next door. He was lightheaded and felt queasy from not eating for nearly two days, but he remembered to take it slow just like Dean had always warned him to do in times like this, like after he'd had a bad bout of flu and hadn't been able to eat for a while, lest he just end up eating too fast and throwing it all back up. 

About three o'clock, John came back to the room. He didn't look at Sam, just headed straight for the shower. Sam sat gripping the edge of the mattress, listening above the rush of running water for some small sound from next door, and John found him that way when he came out of the bathroom ten minutes later toweling at his wet hair: leaned forward, face pinched in concentration, and knuckles white where they fisted the comforter by his jittering knees.

'He's sleeping,' John said shortly. 'He'll be fine by tonight.' 

Sam forced himself to relax and nod at his father's words.

'I'm going to go get something to eat, then I need to meet a contact whose coming into town in a couple of hours,' John said. 'I'll be back late.'

He tossed a twenty on the bed. 'Eat. Get your brother something when he comes around.'

Sam nodded again. John paused for a moment in pulling on his leather coat and looked directly at Sam—a rare occurrence—and his mouth opened, like he was going to say something else, but then snapped tight shut again. He dropped his coat across his broad shoulders, flipped up the collar against the still pouring rain, jammed his wallet in his pocket, his gun in the waistband of his pants, and walked out the door without another word.

Sam was off the bed like a shot the moment the Impala's engine purred into the distance, lock picks in hand—because he was sure John had been careful to take the keys for the other room—and kneeling down in the wet puddle in front of Dean's door to make quick work of the flimsy lock.

The room was dark. Sam could just make out the shapes of furniture in the exact same places as the room he'd just come from, and the shape of his brother sprawled naked and uncovered on the kingsize bed. 

'Dean?'

Dean didn't answer. He was absolutely still on the bed and only the slow rise and fall of his chest set him apart from some poor dead victim of a random sex crime. Because that's what it smelled like had happened in this room. Sam cringed at the pungent odor. The mingled scents of semen and slick and sweat were sharp in his nostrils, and he wanted to gag and retch in disgust because there had been no pleasure in what happened here, not even satisfaction, just a base filling of a base need, and that was all. 

Sam trembled a little as he moved to push open the window and let in the light, cold breeze from outside and the gentle sound of rain on asphalt. He went into the bathroom and ran hot water in the room's ice bucket and took it and a cloth and towel out to the bed where Dean was sprawled. He very gently began washing away the crusted, sticky evidence of the act that taken place in this room. He levered his brother onto his back, to get the stained, rumpled comforter out from underneath him, thankful that they hadn't even bothered to unmake the bed, then he rolled him back on his stomach because Dean was most comfortable sleeping that way, and finished stripping off the soiled bedding. He went next door and pulled the blankets and comforters from both the queen beds and brought them back and covered Dean against the chill in the room from the open window. He toed off his shoes and slipped under the covers and molded himself tight to Dean's side, sliding slender fingers up into the short hair at the back of his skull, and making soothing little sounds as he stroked slowly at his scalp.

Dean mumbled something in his sleep, moaned a little, and then shifted his weight more heavily against his brother's slim body.

Sam bit his lip against hot tears of fury that burned against his lashes. He continued to stroke Dean's hair.

'Never gonna let him do it again, Dean. Never.'


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean goes into heat when John isn't around. Sam makes his move.

Sam couldn't make good on his promise for nearly six more years.

At fifteen Sam presented as an Alpha, something he thought might gain him a modicum of approval from his father, maybe shift some of that endless disappointment in his eyes when he looked at either of his sons; but John had acknowledged Sam's presentation with wary resentment instead. They were on an even keel now, and John was no fool not to be aware of Sam's growing dissatisfaction with a great many elements of their rootless, nomadic lives. So, Sam's being an Alpha was treated as a threat in John's eyes, not a relief.

They butted heads more and more often, and it fell to Dean to get between them before they managed to do any serious injury to each other. Dean was good at it, but then Sam was easy to diffuse, too, when it came to his brother. All Dean had to do was get in his field of vision, get a hand in his too long, shaggy hair, and come near enough that—even damped by black-market meds—his Omega scent filled up Sam's senses and had him going pliant, if not obedient, in Dean's hands. That he would back down so easily from a fight seemed to anger John more than relieve him which Sam found laughable since John didn't ever turn his back completely on his younger son now days, out of distrust or fear or both Sam wasn't entirely sure. 

Since that first unavoidable heat, Sam had been silently planning a way to break them free of John's hold. When he presented as an Alpha, the possibility became a lot more feasible, but he still wasn't strong enough to take John on if it came to that, and by the time he was strong enough, he had better sense than to do it because he knew at sixteen Dean would _never_ accept Sam as the alternative to John's base treatment of his heats.

So he waited.

Sam waited until he was a month away from turning eighteen and John had installed them in an abandoned construction trailer at the edge of some slum industrial district that even the gangs steered clear of because there was nothing there but condemned concrete shells of buildings about to collapse on themselves and the rank smell of rotten wood and polluted water from the nearby docks.

John had decided to go this hunt alone because it was another werewolf, and though he wouldn't admit it when Sam finally got in his face and demanded some answers, Sam had caught enough of the hushed conversation on the phone the night before his departure to know that their father had been asked to hunt down an old friend. So John wanted some privacy for this one. Fantastic. Sam could really care less. He was a few weeks from graduating, it was spring break, and he had a plan. 

Or he thought he did. Until things went slightly sideways.

'Fuck.'

Dean's sharp, huffed curse brought Sam awake to the muted yellow of early morning sun coming through the trailer's tiny, dirty windows. He rolled into a sitting position, stretching his aching back, because it hadn't seen anything more than two inches of egg crate foam under his sleeping bag for over a month, and looked around in search of his brother and the cause of his swearing.

Dean was braced in the door of the bathroom, nearly doubled over, one hand fisted to his belly.

Sam knew the signs. He didn't need to pull in the deep breath that carried with it the warm earthy scent of his brother's heat that Sam knew would be ten times stronger and a thousand times sweeter if he would just stop taking those damn pills.

'Dean?' Sam rolled up to his knees and braced his hands on his thighs. 'Dean, you all right?'

No real need to ask. Dean knew that Sam knew what went on between him and their father every few months even though neither of them had ever actually spoken of it out loud in the long six years since it had begun. Sam only asked out of courtesy, to gauge how Dean was going to react, to see just how far gone, under the swamping hormonal tide invading his blood stream, he actually was.

Dean fought to straighten up, only managed a few inches toward upright, and gave Sam something that was supposed to be a tight smile but came off a pained grimace. 'Fine. Just…bad burger last night.'

'You had a burrito,' Sam said evenly.

'Whatever.' 

Dean cringed at another cramp, and Sam fought the urge to launch himself off the floor and pull Dean close and ease the pain in his belly without so much as a 'by your leave.' His Alpha blood was already running hot, Dean's damped scent wafting around him, torturing him with the promise of its power at full strength, making his cock twitch and start to swell. 

This was the other thing they didn't talk about. 

For almost three years Sam had been keeping his Alpha urges in a strangle hold every time Dean went into heat. He knew Dean could smell him. He knew Dean wanted what Sam had on offer, but he also knew that all Dean could see when he looked at Sam was the baby brother he'd raised from a newborn pup to the tall, lank, lean six-foot-four-inches of muscle and bone and sinew and tanned skin that he was today. 

Alpha/Omega relationships took precedence over any other kind of binding tie, including siblings, when the attraction was there. It was just the way of things. But Sam figured Dean, in his mind, couldn't get past the image of his baby brother doing to him what John did, and that kept him from ever letting Sam try to help him.

Sam pulled in another breath, the scent hitting him stronger this time.

Well, today, things were going to change. 

He stood up and stalked across the small space to the back of the trailer where Dean was struggling to right himself and pull himself together even with the knowledge that he was fast approaching a point of no return and would need an Alpha's knot in him to take away the madness and pain encroaching on every one of his senses.

Dean's heats had been getting steadily worse over the years, and Sam had a suspicion why, but he wasn't going to broach that subject until he got past the one in front of him right now.

'Dean,' he said, voice quiet and soothing, like he was trying to calm a wild animal, which he almost was. 'I can help you…if you'll let me.'

'No.'

Dean's response was quick and automatic, and yet it was wrung out of him in such a reluctant tone that Sam's gut clenched around a tiny spark of hope.

'Dean, you need—'

'I know what I fucking need!' Dean snapped.

Sam wasn't deterred by Dean's anger. It was anger driven by a need so desperate and powerful, it was literally causing his brother pain. Pain that was cramping Dean's belly to the point he was doubled over again and only his death grip on the doorframe was holding him up. 

'Then let me give it to you,' Sam said. 'Christ, Dean! You don't need to go through this. I can make it better.'

'Not gonna let you, Sammy,' Dean hissed through another cramp so severe it made his whole body twitch. 

'Why, Dean? Why won't you let me help you? It's all I've ever wanted.'

'Sam, stay out of this,' Dean ground out warningly.

'No. I won't,' Sam said stubbornly. 'Just let me—'

'I said no!' Dean shouted. He gasped then, cringing under another wave of cramps. 'Dammit, Sammy, just—'

'What're you going to do?' Sam asked, trying like hell to keep his tone even. 'If you won't let _me_ , you have to have someone. What? You want me to call Dad and see if he'll come back out of the goodness of his heart and fuck you until you're satisfied?'

It came out a lot harsher than Sam intended, and he could see the shock in his brother's face, but his blood was running hotter and hotter by the second, the proximity to Dean starting to drive him a little crazy.

'Jesus, Sam, it's not like that,' Dean said.

'Isn't it?' Sam countered, pressing forward. 'I've been listening to the two of you for six years, Dean. He practically _rapes_ you!'

'Sam!'

'He does! I've heard you. I've heard how he "satisfies you." Seen you afterward, too. Just because he doesn't leave any marks on the outside, doesn't mean a damn thing.' Sam ran his hands back through his hair, fisting them in thick hanks at the base of his skull. 'Dammit, Dean, it's taken all I have not to kill the man since I was sixteen, not to brain him senseless every time he laid a finger on you.'

Dean blanched, stared in shocked silence.

'Dean, I've watched you go through six years of heats, and him denying you the one thing you need most every single time.'

'And what might that be?' Dean tried for caustic but missed by a mile with the tremor evident in his tone.

Sam pulled in a breath. In for a penny, in for pound, he thought. He'd pushed Dean this far, what could it hurt to tell him what he knew the real problem was.

'A litter in your belly…to take away that empty ache you feel that keeps getting worse year after year.'

Dean screwed up his face in disgust. 'I don't want that from him!'

'I know you don't! But _I_ could give it to you.' Sam shouted back, but then drew up short, suddenly unsure. Alpha or no, he was still the youngest brother, still had less experience than the grown man standing in front of him. 'Unless you don't want it from me, either.'

Dean was dumbstruck. 'Sammy, I— You can't—'

'I can, and I want to,' Sam said with iron certainty.

'You don't know what you're saying, Sam…' Dean murmured weakly.

Sam wanted to grab his brother and shake him, but kept his hands fisted at his sides so he didn't spook him any more than he already was. 'Why do you think that, Dean? Why?'

Dean scowled. 'You're _eighteen_ , Sam. Not even. And you've never known…' He drifted off, gestured helplessly.

Sam almost wanted to laugh.

'Well, there you're wrong, Dean. I have. Several times. I've been careful,' he said quickly to forestall his brother's admonishment. He inched forward, pressing further into Dean's space, catching his gaze and holding it. 'Want to know why I've been so careful, big brother?'

Dean's breath was starting to come in short little bursts as Sam encroached on his space, and he didn't think it was just from the wrenching cramps in his belly. He hissed under his breath as another wave crashed into him and nearly sent him to his knees, but Sam was there in the space of the door with him, holding him, holding him up.

'Because, Dean,' Sam whispered at his ear as he slipped his broad palm down to cover Dean's where it pressed hard against his middle. 'I want my pups here, in _your_ belly. No where else, no one else, just you.'

Dean's knees nearly gave out. 'Jesus Christ, Sam…'

Sam slipped in closer, pulled Dean full length against him, pressed their hips together so that Dean could not miss the unmistakable ridge of Sam's hard, erect cock. Dean trembled in his arms, his lungs emptying on a punched out breath, and Sam pulled in a harsh breath of his own, scenting the suddenly heady rush of slick in the air.

'Dean…?'

Dean was full on shaking now, fingers flexing against Sam's bare skin where his hands had traveled up of their own accord to grip and dig at his brother's ribs. 'Sam, if you don't—I can't—I won't be able to—'

'Then don't,' Sam whispered against the shell of Dean's ear.

It was all the permission Dean seemed to need. 

Sam expected a frenzied onslaught of clawing hands and nipping bites from his brother, but all Dean did was melt against him, molding them together until there was no space whatever, and cling to him. Sam was confused for a pair of heartbeats, but then it struck him that Dean had never once been allowed to enjoy this. He had never once been allowed to ask for anything that made him feel good. He had never been allowed to lead, or guide, or even object to anything that was done to him. 

Fury boiled up under the desire in Sam's blood and made his first ravaging kiss of Dean's pliant mouth much more forceful and cruel than he intended. Dean moaned pitifully against his lips and let himself be plundered, his body locked up in what Sam imagined was a practiced tension to not let any of his own desires leak out into action.

'Fucking Christ,' Sam bit out and dragged his mouth from Dean's.

Dean whimpered again and ducked away a little. It struck Sam to the core.

All his life, Dean had been the strong one, the big brother, the one with all the answers, the larger-than-life hero to a gawky little boy who grew into his own big hands and feet and too long bones about three years later than any of his peers. To see that man he had looked up to for the length and breadth of his life beaten into submission like this, nearly broke the already cracked and crumbling dam inside him that held back all his fury and hatred and disgust for their father.

'Fucking _Christ_!' he swore again, raggedly, and buried his nose against the side of Dean's throat, feeling his brother's pounding pulse through the thin skin there.

Now was not the time. Now was not the time to let any of those feelings for John out in the open. Now was only for Dean. Now was for Sam to try and begin to repair six years worth of damage and somehow salvage whatever was left of his brother and build it back up into what it might have been— _should_ have been—had Fate not turned the wheel, just so, on all of them.

Sam cupped Dean's face, engulfing his strong jaw in his huge hands, and tipped his face up until they were eye to eye. 'Dean…tell me what you want. I need to know. I need to hear it.'

Dean startled a little, eyes flaring wide. 'I can't—'

'You can,' Sam assured in a whisper and brushed his lips against Dean's. 'You can and I want you to. Tell me everything. Everything you do want, and everything you don't want.'

'Sam, I-I….' Dean stuttered, stumbled, tears blooming hot in his eyes.

'Shhh. Dean, I'm not him,' Sam whispered. 'I'm not. I want to help you.' 

Dean shuddered at the words, and Sam frowned. 

'What?'

' 'S what he always says…"I'm helping you,"' Dean mumbled as he tried to duck his head down against Sam's firm pull upward.

'God, dammit…' Sam swore viciously and Dean flinched. Sam pressed another kiss to his lips, even more softly than the last time. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry…I…'

Sam felt lost. He hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected Dean to see anything of John in him, and it cut him, sharp and stinging. He floundered for a moment, trying to think of something, anything to move this forward because Dean was shuddering and shaking in his hands, needing Sam to take him and knot him and pour himself into him again and again, but fear was seizing him up, holding him captive.

Sam brushed continuous, soft kisses over Dean's lips and cheeks, his eyelids when he coaxed them to close, along his furrowed brow until it released its tension under his tender ministrations. 'Dean…Dean…I…' 

Sam's blood raged in his ears. His body was on fire with a wanting that he knew was mirrored in his brother's, no matter that he was trying to go slow and gentle; and then the answer was there, suddenly, like a mirage on the sand finally resolving to show the lush green of a real oasis. 

He lifted Dean's face, ran his thumbs across his eyelids and pressed gently at the corners until they fluttered open to stare up into Sam's. 'I want you, Dean. I. Want. You.'

Dean's eyes went dark, pupils expanding like a sun gone supernova, until there was only the thinnest ring of emerald shining like a molten corona. Sam's heart turned over in his chest, and his blood crashed and sang in his veins as he felt Dean lifting to him, moving against him, asking—silently and cautiously to be sure, but still asking—to be touched.

Sam had wanted a dark night with the beautiful curve of a crescent moon out under the stars in a small cabin with a soft bed and a fire, maybe even a couple of candles, to be the setting for their first coupling. Now, he didn't even have a bed. He had an egg crate foam pad and a sleeping bag unfurled on the hard panel floor of some drafty trailer not even meant for permanent living. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't even _good_ , but it would be enough for now. Sam would make it enough.

He slipped his hands down and around Dean's back, one planted firm between his shoulder blades to steady him, one splayed in the small of his back to urge him to roll his hips forward into Sam's and press their mutual erections together. He turned them and walked them back toward the makeshift palette on the floor.

'I want you, Dean,' he kept whispering. 'I want you so bad…I don't know how slow I can go, but I'm gong to try. I'm going to make you feel so good, Dean. So good…'

Dean was nearly quaking in Sam's arms, the unrequited need that had translated into crippling pain earlier, now rushing through his veins in the form of a violent, barely contained desire. He stood still while Sam backed up a half step and worked at his shirt buttons, staring in unabashed shock as Sam very slowly undressed him, sliding his flannel off and letting it drop to the floor, tugging at his t-shirt gently until Dean lifted his arms to let it be pulled off in one fluid motion over his head, then getting down on his knees to unlace his boots and pull off his socks.

Sam stayed on his knees, leaning back far enough that he could look Dean up and down, slowly sweeping his gaze across contoured muscle that he had appreciated for years but never been allowed to touch in the way he most wanted, eyeing with grief and regret the myriad of scars that he had collected on those hunts he had gone along with John, letting his gaze finally zero in on the straining bulge in the front of his brother's jeans and the warm wet spot growing between his thighs. He looked up, waiting until Dean met his gaze.

'Can I touch you?' 

Sam only just moved fast enough to catch Dean in his arms when his brother's knees buckled completely at the simple question and landed him a shocked and gasping mess of tears against Sam's chest.

'Dean?'

Dean just shook his head unable to speak past the sudden rush of awe that had sent him to his knees. Sam waited. A short, few tense breaths later, Dean reached for Sam's wrist and slowly, shakily drew his hand to the rigid curve of his swollen cock, held it there. Sam's heart hammered in his chest. He was surprised the sound of it didn't echo back at them from the thin, flimsy walls of the trailer. He cupped his palm against the hot curve of his brother's erect flesh, and pressed a wet, sloppy kiss up under his jaw, sucking gently. Dean trembled and moaned and bit it back at the last second.

'No,' Sam said firmly. 'No, don't do that. Want to hear you…every sound you want to make.'

He thumbed the zipper of Dean's jeans open and slipped his hand under the tough material to cup the swollen, straining flesh underneath.

'Sammy!' 

Dean pushed up against his brother's palm, arching back, baring his throat for Sam to kiss and suck and nip. Sam pushed his hand down further, fingers questing down and back until they found the warm, wet heat of Dean's slick, and were rewarded with another gush of it, soaking the thin fabric of his boxer briefs.

Sam's own body clenched hard at the feel of that hot wetness on his fingers. His cock was full and tenting out his sweats, and his knot was pulsing, wanting to swell, but he willed it down, shoved back against the monstrous tide threatening to crash over him and carry him away. He had to be careful. He had to take care of Dean. Dean was his first priority.

Dean's hips were working now, thrusting in little aborted moves, like they were testing the boundaries to see just how much he could get away with. Sam hooked his thumbs in the waistband of Dean's jeans and briefs and tugged down. Dean gasped as his long, hard length was freed from the hindering fabric and curved out, hot and swollen and flushed, under Sam's hungry, appreciative gaze. Sam pushed enough denim and cotton out of the way that he could cup both palms together and cradle his brother's cock in his hands, just hold it for a long few seconds, gazing at its beautiful length and girth picked out in pulsing veins filled to bursting with blood and desire.

'Jesus, Dean, you're beautiful,' Sam said reverently, and ran his thumbs very softly up and down the length of Dean's cock while still cradling it tenderly in his hands.

It was more than Dean could take. He wobbled a little, and then with a helpless huff of breath, he dropped back on the sleeping bag, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Sam smiled and tugged his jeans and briefs the rest of the way off, dispensed with his own sweats, leaving himself completely naked and then sat back on his haunches to admire the long, perfect lines of his brother's body.

'Dean, you _are_ beautiful. Every part of you,' Sam said. He leaned forward, putting his hands on Dean's knees, letting them slide slowly down to the juncture of his groin. He cupped Dean's cock again, squeezed gently, smiled as his brother moaned aloud, eyes shooting wide at the sensation. 'Want to touch you again, Dean. Inside this time.'

Dean made a strangled sound, and let his knees fall apart to bare himself for his brother. Sam bent down, but instead of immediately going to stroke Dean's slick opening, he paused over his swollen, twitching cock and laved his tongue, long and flat and wet, up the length of it. Dean shuddered and nearly yelped, and Sam grinned and repeated the move.

'S-Sam…?'

'All of you, Dean,' Sam said. 'I want all of you.'

Dean's cock blurted a little puddle of pre-cum on his belly and Sam dragged his fingers through it, waited until Dean's eyes refocused on him, and then licked them slowly clean.

'Fuck, Sam, I want—' 

Dean cut himself off, bit down on whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

Sam leaned up over him, kissed him, letting him taste himself as he licked deep into Dean's mouth.

'What, Dean?' he coaxed as he shifted his weight to one arm and let his other hand drag slow and easy down across his brother's broad chest, quivering belly, and then dip between his thighs and pause. 'What do you want?'

Dean shook his head quick, as if to clear it, like it might dispel whatever dream this was that had his baby brother poised above him and offering him anything he wanted that would assuage the need building like a raging forest fire in his belly.

'W-Want,' he stumbled, licked his lips and tried again. 'Want you, Sammy.'

'How?' Sam asked and let his hand dip lower to stroke once, twice, at Dean's wet opening, hot slick gushing across his fingers all the answer he really needed, but he pressed anyway. 'How do you want me?'

'Inside.' Dean arched and grabbed at Sam's shoulders, need finally driving him past his inhibitions. 'Want you inside. Christ, Sam, please! Need your knot in me.'

Sam's head dropped forward a fraction and he gulped a deep steadying breath, completely unprepared as he was for the rush of want and desire that slammed into him at Dean's pleading. He nodded, willing but unable to speak at the moment past the lump in his throat that was somehow spreading to take over his chest as well, making it feel like his heart was going to explode out of him at any second.

Dean made a small sound deep in his throat and moved as if he was going to turn over on his stomach. Sam pressed a hand flat to his chest, holding him. Dean froze.

'No.' Sam frowned. 'No, I want to see you. I want to see you when I stretch you open and push into you. I want to see what color your eyes turn when my knot pops so deep inside you and fills your belly.'

Dean's cock twitched again, blurting another puddle of cum, and Dean whimpered and arched up, pushing his hips up toward Sam's, reaching toward the heat and friction his entire body was singing out for. Sam dropped down, letting his hips settle in the cradle of Dean's thighs, just rubbing easy and slow until Dean was whining with need and the sleeping bag beneath them was soaked with his slick.

'Sammy, please. God, I need it. Need your knot. Please,' Dean begged.

Sam stroked Dean's opening again, gently pushed a finger up inside, sucked back against his own whimper of need at the feel of all that soft, wet heat, convulsing around him. He tried two fingers, found no resistance whatever, and then added a third. Dean gasped and thrust down against Sam's fingers, grinding so hard his knuckles popped. 

'Fuck, Sammy…yes!' Dean twisted and thrust against Sam's hand again. Sam growled deep and low, felt his knot starting to thicken and swell.

'Dean, I've got to—it's got to be now, or I won't—'

Somewhere in the scramble of words, Dean picked out Sam's meaning and nodded urgently. Sam withdrew his fingers to an almost pained gasp that dropped into a hum of anticipation as they were quickly replaced with the hot swell of Sam's cock head. 

That first wet gush of slick across Sam's swollen head nearly undid him. His cock was throbbing, knot thickening more every second. He settled between Dean's thighs and lined himself up and pressed against the opening that had felt so loose around his fingers but now felt impossibly tight and so, so hot as he tried to push into it. 

Dean groaned and tried to spread himself wider, planted his feet and boosted his hips up so Sam had a straighter entry, but his knot was so heavy and swollen that he could barely press past the initial tight ring of muscle. He stopped, held above Dean, panting hard,

'I don't—I don't want to hurt you. Won't do that to you.'

Dean shook his head. 'Don't stop, Sam…don't stop. I can—I can take it. I promise.'

Sam sighed in frustration. 'You're not suppose to "take it." I want you to want it. To feel good.'

He started to back out and Dean grabbed at his hips, holding him firm, eyes clearing a little of the desperation and all consuming need. 

'I do want this,' Dean said. 'You. Want you. Just…go slow, and it'll be all right.'

Sam shuddered a little. There was his big brother again, helping him, guiding him through when he started to get flustered and panicky. He nodded slowly, took a deep breath, and pressed his hips forward in a steady, slow slide up into Dean's tight passage.

Dean writhed a little, gasped, body tensing for a split second and then releasing all at once to lay limp under Sam, relaxed and pliant.

'God, Dean, you're so tight,' Sam gasped. 'I can't…fuck, I don't think I can…'

Dean rolled his hips, taking Sam deeper, stretching around his thick, throbbing cock. 'It's okay, Sammy. Don't hold back. Don't want you to hold back. Anything.'

Sam pushed in further, felt Dean's insides convulse around him, knew they were both close, so close to spilling over. He stopped, shook his hair out of his eyes and dropped low enough to take Dean's mouth with his own, kissing him solidly and fiercely. 

'Dean, I have to know. Have to hear you say you want it. Please,' Sam murmured against his lips. He moved his free hand between them until it was pressed wide and warm against Dean's belly. 'I want it. Want it so much, but I can't—can't unless you say, Dean.'

Dean stilled under him, and for one horrible second, Sam was sure he was going to try and pull away. Finally faced with getting what his body had been telling him he needed and wanted for years, he was going to follow his fears and deny himself. But then Sam felt the warmth of Dean's calloused hand folding over his own, pressing it tighter against the quivering muscles beneath.

'I've been so empty for so fucking long, Sam…' Dean swallowed thickly, staring straight into his brother's eyes. He nodded slowly. 'I want it, Sammy. I want your pups in my belly.'

Sam trembled, growled deep and low, and rolled his hips in a solid thrust that seated him flush with Dean's ass, lodging his knot deep inside him. He felt it start to swell, tried to pull back, to thrust again, but it was too late. His knot was swollen and huge and seconds from popping and filling Dean up with cum. He rocked instead, pushing in little tantalizing thrusts, urging his knot even deeper, feeling it grow so big inside his brother that the ridge of it pressed out into his palm where it was settled over Dean's belly.

'Jesus, Sam…Jesus!' Dean gasped with the stretch and burn of Sam's swelling knot inside him, rocking his hips in perfect rhythm with his brother, taking him in, letting him slide deeper and deeper until he was riding the hot white edge of his orgasm and his cock was jerking hard, eager for the throb of release, where it was trapped against Sam's belly. 

'That's it, Dean.' Sam crested his own wave, rode it high, held his breath, and opened his eyes wide to watch Dean in the long plummet down. 'That's it. Want you to come for me. Do it. Do it, Dean. Come for me…so hard…'

Dean arched up, body almost entirely held off the hard floor by his broad shoulders and his strong legs locked around Sam's lower back. Sam held him close as he shuddered once, fiercely, and then cried out as his orgasm slammed through him, body locking up and tightening impossibly, bearing down so hard on Sam's sheathed cock that Sam had no hope of not tripping over his own edge and soaring out with a long low howl over the white hot flows of erupted passion pulsing out from both of them until they were completely drained and could barely remember how to breathe, and finally collapsed in a wild tangle of limbs.

Sam knew he had never come so hard for anyone, ever, in his life. He could still feel his cock twitching inside his brother's randomly clenching body, trying to spill the very last of himself deep in Dean's belly. The pleasure was so intense it almost hurt. He heaved a huge breath, trying to recover his fuzzy vision and shake the ringing from his ears. Dean was below him, blinking himself back from whatever momentary lapse of awareness he'd experienced, and Sam smiled broadly. His hand was still trapped between their bodies, spread over Dean's middle. He flexed his fingers, felt Dean's breath hitch and catch in his throat on a tiny moan.

'Regrets?' Sam whispered.

Dean shook his head. 'No.'

'Hopes?' Sam whispered softer, nosing at Dean's jaw and kissing him slowly, licking against his lips until they parted and opened and let him taste them tenderly. 

Dean flushed and gave a quick nod.

Sam nodded back, but looked very seriously down into Dean's eyes. 'I don't want you taking that stuff ever again.'

Dean's eyes flashed wild for a second, in fear, but Sam took hold of his jaw with a gentle hand. 'Never again. You're mine now, and I won't have you hiding like that.'

Sam dropped his mouth to Dean's throat, trailed a line of kisses down to his clavicle and across to his left shoulder, licked there, opened his mouth against his skin, but the second Dean felt the brush of his sharpened canines, he jerked back, fitting one hand between them to knock against Sam's sternum and force him back.

'No,' Dean said hoarsely.

Sam stared, confused, hurt blooming in his chest, but then he saw the terror in Dean's eyes, and it eased back. He shook his head, frustrated, adding one more tick against John to his infinite list of things that made him want to take the man apart from the inside out and light his intestines on fire while they were still spilling from his warm, breathing body.

He laved over the spot his teeth had scraped with a gentle stroke of his tongue, kissed it softly and leaned back. 'I will have you. You _are_ mine now, Dean. No one else's. Especially if…' His hand moved against Dean's belly, cupping the bloated swell where Sam had come so hard and long it had filled him completely. Dean gulped in a breath, and Sam was almost afraid he might protest, but he held his tongue. 'Mine,' he repeated. 'And I want you just as you are. The way you're supposed to be. Not hiding behind any little red pills, and God damn him to hell for ever doing that to you.'

'But he'll—'

'I'll kill him if he does,' Sam said sharply not even knowing exactly how Dean was going to finish that thought.

Dean just nodded, a wariness settling in behind his eyes that made Sam's heart hurt. He dipped his forehead to rest against Dean's. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry… That sounded just like him. I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't mean it. I wouldn't—I don't think—but he can't touch you. Not ever again. And he can't make you take that stuff. Whether or not you'll let me finish this, you're mine now. Okay?'

Dean's eyes slowly cleared, and Sam could feel the tension easing out of his muscles again. Sam rolled to the side, pulling Dean with him, and molded their naked bodies together from head to toe, tangling their legs and tugging the sleeping bag over them against the light of the encroaching day outside. 

Dean was sated for now, but the fire was only damped, and Sam wanted to take every opportunity over the next few days to show his brother just how much he wanted this between them, how much he had to give him, how much better it could be than Dean had ever known before. He pressed a kiss to the top of Dean's head, pushing his nose into the short, soft hair there, and whispered sleepily,

'Love you, brother.'

Dean trembled in response, but remained silent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean figures out he's pregnant. Sam threatens John. Hot sex is had. John comes home. And there are surprises all around.

Two and a half weeks and three consecutive mornings of Dean beating it to the bathroom ten minutes after he downed his usual cup of black coffee accompanied by bacon and eggs or a stale donut for breakfast, later, and Sam was pretty sure his brother was pregnant. What he wasn't so sure of was if Dean was ready to admit it to himself yet or not.

He looked up from his final draft of his AP Literature essay that was due the following Monday—last assignment of the year, hell, of his whole high school career—and watched his brother stop in the bathroom door, sway just a fraction before steadying himself, and then swipe a shaking hand across his mouth before he made his way across the room to sit down on the crap, half-collapsed couch that took up nearly the entire length of one of the long walls of the trailer.

'Dean, you feeling okay?' Sam asked, trying to keep his tone casual, because Dean had to figure this one out on his own. Sam instinctively knew that. Dean may have let him— _asked_ him—to knot him and fill him, knowing full well a pregnancy could result, but that didn't mean he was one hundred percent ready to admit that it was really happening, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to have it force fed down his throat. Dean could be even more stubborn than Sam when he wanted to be, and Sam forcing this issue was only going to make the final revelation that much harder for Dean to come to terms with.

' 'M fine,' Dean said wearily, leaning back into the squashed cushions and tipping his head back to look up at the water spotted ceiling tiles before he let his eyes drift closed.

'You look a little beat, man,' Sam offered, still carefully casual. 'Maybe you should just stretch out and get a little more shut eye. Not like we really have any place to go. I've got to finish this paper, so…'

'Yeah, maybe,' Dean answered after a moment, a little distractedly.

Sam nodded and remained silent, keeping half an eye on his brother as he went back to proofing his paper. 

Dean sat perfectly still for several minutes until Sam was almost sure he'd fallen asleep and was about to go over and gently push him sideways and cover him up with a blanket so he didn't get a kink in his neck when Dean's hand moved to cover his belly. He still hadn't opened his eyes, and he made no other move for another long stretch of minutes besides to sit there with his left hand resting across his middle. Sam studiously kept his focus on the laptop screen in front of him, but caught himself several times holding his breath as if he were trying to keep quiet enough to hear even the softest of admissions come from his brother at any moment.

'Hey, Sam?' Dean finally said quietly.

'Yeah,' Sam answered without looking over and fought to keep the smile out of the corners of his mouth.

Dean lifted his head, looked down at his hand where it rested and sighed in something that sounded a mix of frustration and weary resignation. 'I think we need to talk.'

'About?' Sam asked, just barely sparing Dean a glance because he could hardly trust himself with more than that. He didn't want to be difficult, he really didn't, but he needed Dean to hash this out on his own, and letting him off the hook of actually saying the words out loud wasn't going to help him.

'Sam, I think I'm—' He stopped, scrubbed a hand across his face and started again. 'It's been almost three weeks, and what with all the throwing up lately, and the fact that I can't seem to shake this exhaustion no matter how many fucking hours of sleep I get a night, I think I'm, uh—might be—pregnant.'

Finally.

Sam let the smile that had been twitching at his lips for the last twenty minutes—the last week and a half if he were to be honest—spread across his face as he turned slowly to face Dean across the room.

'I think you might be, too,' he said lightly.

Dean frowned for a second, then frowned harder and threw one of the flattened throw pillows at Sam's head. 'Fuck you. You _knew_?'

Apparently being pregnant had no debilitating effects on his big brother's aim. Sam tossed the pillow back at him. 'Yeah, I suspected.'

'You could have just said,' Dean groused, slumping down in the cushions and holding the pillow across his midsection. 

Sam got up and came to sit beside him. 'Dean, this isn't just about you being pregnant.' He scowled a little. 'Well, it is, but what I mean is that it's even more about you figuring it out—'

'Do I get a gold star, Mr. Teacher?' Dean sneered.

'Shut up, Dean,' Sam said without an ounce of heat. 'I'm serious. This is something I want you to be happy about, to give yourself permission to enjoy.'

'You want me to _enjoy_ feeling like I'm gonna hurl every five minutes, and be happy about getting fat?'

'That's not what I meant—Jesus, Dean! Do you have to be so damn difficult?' Sam pushed his hands through his hair. 'Look, I know you. I know you aren't going to just take to this like a fish to water. Omega or not, you've been trained like an Alpha and filled that roll for a lot of your life, and you're used to being the strong one, the one in charge, the one whose always in control—'

'Damn straight,' Dean said. 'And I still am.'

'I'm not saying you're not,' Sam sighed. 'I'm just…. Dammit, none of this is coming out right.' Sam sat up and grabbed one of Dean's hands. 'I'm trying to say let me take care of you for a change. Let me be the strong one. Let me be the Alpha that I am, and take care of…my family.'

Sam knew he'd struck a chord, but he wasn't sure it was the right one yet, as he watched Dean's eyes fill and saw him struggle to keep the tears from falling past his long lashes.

'Fucking chick-flick moments,' he sniffled grudgingly. 'Dammit, Sam…'

Dean pushed the pillow aside and reached to grab a fistful of Sam's hoodie and pull him forward into a fierce hug. Sam went willingly, wrapping his arms around his brother and burying his face in the crook of his neck like he used to do when he was small.

They stayed like that for longer than Sam could have hoped or that Dean would ever admit to, until Dean finally said, very quietly,

'We're gonna have to figure out how to tell Dad. 'Cause he is not gonna be happy about this.'

Sam tensed and pulled back, frowning. 'I don't really care what he is or isn't happy about.'

'Sammy,' Dean sighed. 'You cannot go head to head with the man.'

Sam sat back all the way now, face gone blank and hard. 'Yes, Dean, I can. He's never touching you again, and he's sure as _hell_ not touching our pups.'

'Sam, he's our dad… _your_ dad.'

Dean's tone went a little soft, and it made Sam's skin itch in frustration because all he could see was Dean defending a man who had spent nearly his entire life pushing him to be something he wasn't, and then trying to cover it over and ignore it when it became apparent Dean would never be what John wanted.

'I don't care. I don't care about him at all,' Sam said stubbornly. 'I care about you, and our family. That's it. That's all.' 

He turned away then, feeling all that ugliness he kept tightly lidded for John boiling up inside him, and he didn't want it spilling over right now. Not with Dean just on the cusp of soaking in the idea of having Sam's pups inside of him. He heard a soft huff of air that may have been a sad laugh come from beside him.

'What?'

'Jesus.' Dean shook his head. 'I never thought I'd see the day. My little brother—the meek, shy, turn-the-other-cheek-kid in school—getting all territorial.'

'Over you? Hell yeah!' Sam erupted. 'You're mine. No one else is going to touch you. Besides,' he shrugged, 'that was just an act in school because I knew what kind of temper I had, and I wasn't going to let it out.'

Dean had gone still again, and Sam could feel his eyes on him, steady and…Sam couldn't quite place the emotion in them when he finally turned to look. 'Dean?'

'Actually, Sam. I'm not yours.'

Sam snapped his jaw tight at the memory of Dean's refusal to let Sam Bond them during his heat, and turned away again. No, Dean hadn't let him make that final connection, and Sam had respected that…then, because of the terror he'd seen so deep in his brother's eyes, but it wasn't a situation he was going to allow to continue, not with his pups in Dean's belly. He was laying a claim, come hell or high water, on _all_ of them.

'Yeah, well, we'll see about that,' he muttered.

'Nothin' to see about,' Dean said quietly.

Sam raised an eyebrow. 'Dean, I'm not just going to—'

'Not. Happening,' Dean said, and Sam recognized that tone. It was the tone that made Sam stop fighting John over some tidbit of research when they were both too strung out and tired for either one of them to be right. It was the tone that froze Sam in his tracks on a hunt before he tripped a trap or stepped left when he needed to go right. It was the tone Dean used when there was no more argument to be had.

Sam took a deep breath. He could be patient. Obviously, he would have to be. Even if Dean wouldn't acknowledge it, they were as good as Bonded in Sam's mind, and he would act accordingly. His being an Alpha, Dean could hardly expect less of him.

'You look like shit,' Sam said with forced lightness, changing the subject.

'Thanks,' Dean grumbled.

'We need to get some decent food down you.'

Dean rolled his eyes. 'Your idea of "decent" usually resembles cardboard and tastes like it, too. Besides,' he rubbed an absent hand across his middle. 'Nothing stays down anyway.'

Sam eyed the hand resting on Dean's belly, and his fingers twitched. God, how he wanted to reach out and touch— _feel—_ that life inside his brother, but he wasn't stupid. Dean wasn't ready for that yet. The only thing he would get for his efforts right now was slapped and Dean dodging him for the next three days.

'I was thinking maybe more along the lines of some ginger tea to calm your stomach, instead of whatever that stuff is you drink that claims to be coffee, and then maybe some oatmeal or something, sans the grease and sugar,' Sam suggested and kept his hands carefully folded together between his knees to keep himself from reaching out.

'If you want to go on a grocery run, sure,' Dean said, tipping his head back against the cushions again. 'I'm not feeling ambitious enough to drag my ass out for rabbit food right now.'

'Rabbits eat grass, Dean,' Sam corrected with a half smile and pushed off the couch. 'And we don't need to go anywhere.'

He went over to the tiny kitchenette and rummaged in one of the higher cupboards and pulled down a box of ginger tea, instant plain oatmeal, and some soda crackers. Dean cracked an eye to watch him.

'Dude! How the hell long did you have this figured out?' he said indignantly.

Sam shrugged. 'Only since about last week, and don't get all pissy about it. I figured if I tried to tell you, you'd just deny it anyway.'

Dean was quiet for a minute. 'Yeah. 'Spose so.'

Sam paused and turned. 'Dean, I know you.' Dean looked up at him. 'Two and a half weeks ago, your body was doing the talking. It knew what it needed, and it was asking for it. That doesn't mean your brain has caught all the way up with the idea, and I get that. We'll go slow with this, but you've got to remember…'

'What, Sammy?' Dean asked when Sam didn't continue right away.

Sam swallowed hard. 'You've got to remember I'm here, too. That I want to share this with you. That…part of me is inside you.'

Dean's arms wound around his middle at those words, and he couldn't hold onto Sam's gaze. Sam turned back to the tiny three square feet of counter space and started a pot of water to boil for tea.

——

Dean was stretched out and dozing on the couch with a midnight marathon of _Kojak_ on low volume on the 13" set that he'd managed to scrounge from the local Goodwill when it became apparent they were staying for more than the original planned week, and Sam was still hunched at the folding table that passed for their dinette set, when Dean's phone started to buzz.

Dean roused, patted around his pockets, and finally slapped a hand over the buzzing device on the floor beside the couch. He flipped it open.

'Yessir.'

Sam's stomach turned over and clenched hard.

Dean didn't sit up, barely even opened his eyes, which Sam took as a good sign. It meant there was nothing John was saying that was putting any of his senses on high alert. The conversation was short and ended a half minute later with another mumbled, 'yessir,' from Dean. He flipped his phone closed and then rolled into a sitting position, scrubbing at his face with both hands.

'What'd he say?' Sam asked.

'He'll be back in the morning,' Dean answered. He looked over at Sam, eyes tired but still sharp, and somehow unreadable at the moment. 'Pack up your shit, Sam.'

'What? Why!' Sam straightened up. 'He's moving us? I'm two weeks away from graduation, Dean! Can he not wait that long?'

Dean stood up and snapped the television off. 'He's not moving us.'

'Huh?' Sam deflated.

'I am.'

Sam stared. Dean started to  move around the room, gathering up random things, items of clothing, one of Sam's ubiquitous paperbacks that had some library stamp in it from halfway across the country. Sam watched in confusion for a moment before he managed to unstick his tongue enough to speak.

'Dean, what are you doing?'

Dean stopped, shoulders tense, stayed facing away from Sam, but Sam could tell from the ripple of back muscles under his t-shirt that one of his hands had dropped to hover at the level of his bellybutton. Sam stood up and went over to him, stood behind him for a few seconds, not touching, just being in his space, before he pressed in and reached around him, setting both his hands over the one Dean had pressed against his middle.

'Dean, I'm not going to let him touch you. I told you that.'

' 'S not that, Sammy.' Dean was struggling to hold himself together, to keep himself from melting back against Sam. Sam could feel it in the flutter of muscles and the constant, swaying push-pull against his arms. Finally Dean spoke in a whisper,

'He'll kill you, Sammy.'

Sam's arms tightened convulsively and he pressed his lips to Dean's ear. 'No. He won't. I can take him, Dean. If I have to. I won't let it come to that if it can be avoided. I won't start it, I promise you that much; but if he even looks at you wrong, I'll take him apart.'

For just a second, Sam thought Dean might give in without any further fight, but then he shook his head and pulled away. 'No. Get your shit. Let's go.'

Sam grabbed Dean's arm and turned him before he could get another step away. 'Dean, we're not running.'

'The hell we're not.' Dean jerked his arm free. 'We're gonna run so fucking far, it'll take him into next year to find us.'

'He's too good for that,' Sam said quietly. 'He'd be on us in days.'

'Have a little faith, baby brother,' Dean smirked, and it made Sam's heart hurt to see it because it was so brittle and faked. 'I was taught by the best.'

'I know you were, and I don't doubt for one second you'd find a way,' Sam said. 'But it doesn't have to be like that. I'm not running from him with my tail between my legs—'

'And you're suggesting I am?'

Sam held up a placating hand. 'No, that's not what I said. Dean, listen to me…he's going to come here, and he's going to figure it out, whether we're here or not. There's a reason Dad's the best, even I can admit to that one. Then he'll come after us, and the longer he has to hunt, the angrier he's going to get. When he does find us, and he will, it'll be the shit-storm of all time.' He took a half step forward, grateful when Dean didn't back further away, and took hold of his brother's wrists. 'I'm not risking you in that. I'm not risking our pups. I can take him, here and now, before he has a chance to get worked up enough to kill—and you know that's what will happen.'

'He's strong, Sam,' Dean choked out. 'You don't know…'

Sam squeezed Dean's wrists lightly. 'I do know. I've watched him my whole life. He taught me, too, you know.'

Dean seemed to consider this for a moment, but then shook his head again. 'Sam, I don't want you hurt.'

Sam tugged Dean closer, up against his chest. He didn't try to hold him, just pressed his lips to Dean's forehead and murmured, 

'There you go again, being all Alpha. Think about yourself for a change, Dean. Let _me_ think about you for a change.'

Dean dropped his head forward and pulled in a shuddering breath. 'This won't just be one of your arguments, Sam. He'll be out for blood.'

'He's laid no claim to you, Dean. He isn't losing anything by what we've done, but if it comes to that, I told you…I'll end him.'

Dean was quivering now, and Sam took hold of his shoulders, massaging into the muscles that were growing tense and knotting up. He was no fool to what was going on inside Dean's head. It was probably World War III in there. Dean didn't want to run. Even as an Omega, it was against his instinct to just turn around and hightail it, but he wanted to do what he had always done and protect Sam from anything that would hurt him, in this case John. He also knew how much it hurt him to hear Sam say he'd kill John if he needed to. It was his father after all, and even if Sam didn't feel the level of affection for him that Dean did, he still understood where his brother was coming from, understood that bone deep devotion and love that went much further back than Sam was able to reach, into another life and another time. 

Sam dipped his head to brush a kiss at Dean's temple. Dean trembled, whimpered a little.

'Sammy, don't…'

Sam ignored him and moved his head to brush an identical kiss to his other temple, then moved his hands up to cradle Dean's face and tip it up so he could kiss his lips. He went slow, moved gentle, molded their mouths together before he parted his lips to lick against Dean's with just the tip of his tongue, tickling, tempting, asking to be let in, never forcing; no matter how hot and fast his blood had suddenly started to rush in his veins. Dean's hands moved to Sam's hips and he felt them twitching, trying to fight the urge to thread through his belt loops and tug him hard against him. Sam shifted his stance, widened it a little, letting his pelvis settle and scoop forward just enough that Dean could feel it. Then he felt calloused palms skate up under his hoodie, across his ribs, and around to the small of his back where they settled, fluttering, for half a second before they flattened and jerked him forward.

'Yes,' Sam moaned into Dean's mouth. 'God, yes…'

Dean fitted himself between Sam's legs and rolled his hips up and forward, pressing the thick bulge of his engorged cock right up next to Sam's. He angled his head and opened his mouth and swallowed Sam's gasp of pleasure as he sucked hard on his tongue. His hands dipped down the back of Sam's jeans and dug into the thick muscles of his ass, tugging him closer.

Sam broke away first, breathless and grinning like an idiot. 'Jesus, Dean…'

Dean ignored him and pressed up to suck on the soft skin under Sam's jaw while he worked one hand around to the front of Sam's jeans and flicked open the button and twitched down the zipper and got his fingers inside and wrapped around Sam's cock. Sam jerked in surprise, then moaned and pressed into Dean's rough palm. Dean squeezed and Sam gasped. He squeezed harder and added a twist, and Sam growled low.

'Dean, you keep that up and—'

'What?' Dean whispered, green eyes aflame with desire. 'Gonna fuck me, little brother?'

Sam was stunned, for all of half a second. 'Into the damn ground,' he growled and nipped hard at Dean's lower lip. 'Make you scream so loud, they'll hear it in the next fucking county.'

Dean tore his mouth away, gasping for air and grinned. 'Well, then get to it, Sammy.'

Sam allowed himself two seconds to wonder about this sudden change of heart and the abandoned escape attempt, before he pushed it aside in favor of shoving his hand unceremoniously down the front of Dean's jeans and going straight for the warm damp behind his balls and jamming his fingers up and in until he felt the hot, sweet gush of slick dripping across his palm and an equally hot jet of pre-cum against his forearm where Dean's cock twitched and wept while he rubbed himself against Sam's arm and tried to twist his body to get his fingers even deeper inside.

'Dean, I don't want—' Sam tried to speak past the rushing in his ears. Fuck! His cock was aching and so full he was almost surprised his knot wasn't already fully inflated. He ground into Dean's palm again and was again rewarded with a squeeze and twist that left him weak in the knees.

'We've done easy,' Dean snarled against his mouth. 'We've done slow, and you've been good, Sam…so good. But I want it hard this time. Want you to fuck me hard, Sammy.'

Sam wanted to give voice to the niggling fear in the back of his brain that this was Dean slipping back into what he'd been for John, but he tried to console it with the fact that Dean was asking. He was actually asking for this now. Dean didn't give him longer than that to ponder it though, because his thumb found the head of Sam's cock and rubbed into the slit, and Sam's gut clenched so hard with the shock of nearly coming right then and there that he almost doubled over. He grabbed Dean and pushed him toward the couch, thought better of it, and steered them both to the pallet of sleeping bags.

Sam was loathe to pull his fingers out of Dean's soft, wet heat, but he needed him out of his clothes. Now. So he pulled back and went to work on buttons and snaps and zippers while Dean did the same, and they were standing naked half a minute later in the weak light from the kitchenette, pre-cum dribbling down Sam's angry red, swollen cock, slick dripping sweet-scented and thick down the inside of Dean's thighs.

They reached for each other at the same time, Dean getting a firm grip on Sam's cock, and Sam getting one hand on Dean's ass and lifting him enough that he could get the other hand between his thighs and his fingers working back up inside him. Dean spread his legs and kept spreading them, in an attempt to get Sam ever deeper inside of him, until Sam decided it would be easier just to get them both on the floor. He went down first, letting Dean follow and straddle him—Dean still keeping up the twisting stroke on Sam's cock that kept him groaning in pleasure, while Sam kept thrusting his fingers up and in until Dean was soaking wet and moaning continuously with the need to be filled.

'Put me in,' Sam said as he pulled his fingers out and Dean gasped at the loss of sensation. 'Put me inside you.'

Dean's eyes went a shade darker, pupils blown wide, and rolled his thumb across the head of Sam's cock before he pulled back on it gently and then walked himself forward on his knees until he was up and over him and sinking down and down. Sam's whole body jerked with the feel of all that wet heat enveloping him as Dean let his weight guide him slowly down his brother's hard, swollen length. When Dean's ass was flush against Sam's balls and he was groaning above him with the feel of Sam stretching and filling him completely, Sam took hold of Dean's hips to hold him steady and started to move. First it was just slow, strong thrusts, rolling upward and building heat upon heat, and then it became sharp, powerful piston strokes taking them one step closer to combustion with every passing second.

Dean's hands were locked around Sam's where he kept a hold on his brother's hips as he slammed into him, and his head was thrown back, hoarse, broken cries and pleas for more issuing from his throat. Sam kept up the harsh rhythm until his knot was too swollen and the drag it created too painful to let him continue, and then he gave one more solid thrust upward and watched while Dean shook himself to pieces and shouted at the peak of his orgasm as he came all over Sam's belly and chest in thick, pearly ropes. Sam was a breath behind him, shouting out his own orgasm in a heady mix of agony and pure ecstasy as his knot released in a hot rush deep inside his brother and sent a jet of heat lancing up his spine that he swore, for the several seconds it took him to come back down to earth, had flayed him open and left him for dead.

When he could see and breathe again, or at least make a good approximation of both, he wrapped his arms around Dean's back where he had collapsed on top of him, and cupped the back of his head in one broad palm.

'That was…sudden,' he whispered on a breathy laugh.

Dean mumbled into his shoulder, then moved his head a little and said groggily, 'Blame the damn hormones.'

Sam did laugh then, deep and rumbling. 'Blame? No. Thank? Definitely.'

Dean made a half-assed attempt to slug Sam in the shoulder, but decided he was too spent and just nipped at a soft spot against his collarbone instead. Sam scratched lightly into his hair with his nails.

'We still leaving?' Sam asked quietly.

Dean made a sleepy, mumbling sound and shifted his weight to get his knees unbent, but made no move to roll away or get up. Sam waited for a couple of minutes and when he heard Dean's soft, even snores, he nodded once and reached around them to grab the edge of the sleeping bag and pull it over them.

' 'Night, Dean,' Sam whispered into his brother's soft hair, pressing a kiss there.

Dean said nothing, just snored on quietly.

——

Dean was still in the shower when John got back the next morning, something for which Sam was grateful for many reasons, but mostly because it meant he did not have to figure out a tactful way to get himself between John and Dean without bruising Dean's ego.

John wasn't two seconds inside the door before his nostrils were flaring wide and his eyes were narrowing down to dark slits and cutting straight to Sam who stood loose limbed but solid between the front door and the bathroom.

Scent held a sense memory for Werewolves. It could tell a brief history of what had gone on in a place as well as identify the participants. John was one of the best Hunters around, so it took him no time at all to read the sharp scent of sex in the air. The only uncertainty for Sam was whether or not John could identify the scent that would tell him about his eldest son's current condition.

'Dad,' Sam said with a sharp nod. 

John's gaze swept the room while his jaw clamped tight and his hands drew up into fists.

'What in the name of God have you done?' he asked, tone thin and quiet.

Sam had expected rage. This deadly calm and quiet was throwing him just a little, but he met his father's hard gaze and lifted his chin a fraction.

'Do I really need to spell it out for you?'

John advanced a step, fists coming up an inch, then he jerked back, like he was trying to reign himself in. Something else Sam hadn't expected.

'Do you even realize what you've done?'

Sam narrowed his eyes, still trying to determine if John had sussed out Dean's pregnancy, but either way it didn't matter. Sam's answer was still the same.

'Yes. I know exactly what I've done.'

'Do you? You wet-behind-the-ears pup!' 

John did come at him then, and Sam was mildly surprised his advance was straight on and unhindered by an alcoholic curve. Sam sidestepped, but there wasn't a whole lot of room, and John's recovery move with a back handed grab at the scruff of Sam's neck caught him and hurled him off balance into the far wall.

Sam came up fast, but held his ground, trying to keep to his promise that he wouldn't actually hurt John unless John made a move on Dean. His primary concern now, though, as he heard the water shut off and Dean fumbling around for his jeans—because he was sure Dean had heard him hit the trailer wall—was to get himself back around to other side of the room and in front of the bathroom door before Dean came through it. 

He circled to the right, moving easy, keeping his stance as non-threatening as possible and still retaining enough balance to move quickly if he needed to. John was watching him, breathing heavily, not from exertion but from barely checked fury, and let him move around the room.

'Sammy, what're you—' 

Dean pulled up short in the bathroom door, hair still dripping, pale skin glistening wet, jeans unsnapped and slung low on his hips, barefoot; and any other time in any other situation Sam would have been all over him, unable to keep his hands off such a sexy tableau, but right now he just slid sideways and got himself positioned firmly forward of Dean.

'Dad,' Dean breathed out.

Sam spared him a glance, uneasy at the breathless tone in Dean's voice. He spotted the sudden pallor, the way his eyes unfocused for just a second, the panicky little breaths that he struggled to get under control. But most of all, he noticed the hand that dropped to splay wide and protective across his belly. Sam's heart soared high at the gesture, regardless of the impending threat in the room with him, and he kept his eyes on Dean just long enough to be sure the initial shock had passed and he wasn't going to pass out right then and there.

'What the _fuck_ have you done!' John roared.

Sam had time enough to drop lower into his already forward balanced stance and catch John in his misguided headlong charge toward Dean, putting his shoulder deep into John's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him and shoving him backward so that he sprawled near the still open door to the trailer. John was stunned for the amount of time it took him to blink, but then he was on his feet again and coming at Sam. Sam wasn't moving from between Dean and John, so he had to take the hit when John's left jab caught his jaw and his driving uppercut caught him just under the V of his ribs. He huffed a little in surprise because it could have been a kill shot if John had chosen to put enough force behind it. 

Dean must have recognized that, too, because he was coming at John with his fists up, face twisted in open fury, but to Sam's surprise and before he could even get off a warning for Dean to back off, John dodged the punch and slid back a step and then another and wouldn't engage his older son. Sam coughed hard until he could get his diaphragm working again and then launched himself at Dean, grabbing him around the chest and hauling him backward, punching, kicking, and shouting.

'He's your fucking son!' Dean raged and clawed at Sam's hands to try and slip his grip. 'He's your fucking _son_ , and you just tried to _kill_ him!'

John slumped a little at the accusation, bending forward to put his hands on his knees, and watched Dean wrestle in Sam's grip. Sam finally got Dean to hold still enough that he could set his full weight back on the floor, but he kept a firm hold on him. He looked over at John.

'You can come at me all you want…Dad,' Sam said in a low, quiet voice. 'But you leave him out of this. He walks away right now, and you never touch him again. Because even if you kill me, he's still mine. Mine. Do you understand?'

John didn't answer for a long moment, then, 'Does he?'

Sam squared his shoulders at that and narrowed his eyes. 'Yes.'

John straightened, pulled a hand down his face just exactly like Dean was prone to do when he'd hit the end of his rope, and then shook his head. 'God, I hope you don't live to regret this. Either of you.'

And then he did what Sam least expected.

John turned around and walked away.

As he was leaving, Sam noticed the sheen of tears in his eyes, and though he told himself it was just a trick of the light, a cold, hard knot settled in the pit of his stomach that would stay with him for a good long while.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little interlude with a little angst.

The second John was through the door, Dean went limp in Sam's arms with a soft, muffled groan.

'Dean?'

Fear seized Sam's heart for the eternal few seconds it took him to get Dean sat down on the couch and his head down between his knees, but when Dean reached out with a blind hand and squeezed Sam's knee hard in what he knew was supposed to be reassurance, he was finally able to breathe again.

'Don't fucking scare me like that,' Sam huffed out, covering his mouth briefly and closing his eyes against the whirlwind of 'what ifs' that spun in his brain concerning any part of the last five minutes going any other way than what they had.

'Which part?' Dean asked, head still down and voice muffled. 'The part where I nearly beat the shit out of Dad, or the part where I nearly pass out afterward?'

'Either.' Sam laughed. It was dry and nervous. He rubbed a small circle between Dean's shoulder blades and kept it up until his brother's breathing even out. 'Doing okay?'

Dean lifted up slowly, blinking, and his hand momentarily clenched on Sam's knee to steady himself but then released, and he propped himself up on an elbow. 'Yeah. Awesome. Remind me not to do that again.' He dragged a hand down his face. 'Fuck, Sam, I'm not liking this whole 'pregnant' thing very much, if this is what's going to happen every time I get my damn blood pressure up.'

'Depends on how we go about raising your blood pressure, I think,' Sam reassured with a sly smile. 'You seemed to do all right last night.'

Dean cut his eyes to the left, gave Sam a stern look, but a smile played at the corner of his mouth, and he had to duck his head back down to hide it fully.

Sam got up and retrieved a glass of water, offered it down, and Dean sat up far enough to take it and take several swallows.

'Better?'

'Yeah. 'M good.'

Sam nodded and started around the trailer, gathering his laptop and cords, stuffing his books into his backpack, and then set to work rolling up their bedding and hauling their duffles out from beside the couch.

'Go get our stuff out of the bathroom, would you?' he said as he started stuffing his and Dean's strewn clothes into their respective bags. 'And don't forget my razor this time.'

Dean didn't move right away, just sat with the glass of water held loosely in his hands between his knees and looked up at Sam. 'So, now we're going?'

Sam stopped, didn't look up. 'Yeah. I think we should. I don't know if he'll come back. Probably not, but we're not going to be here if he does.'

'Running?' Dean chided gently.

'No.' Sam did look up then, straight into Dean's eyes. 'He knows. That's all you wanted. He walked away, and I'll let him. Just like I said I would.'

Dean said nothing more, just got up and went to gather their stuff from the bathroom.

——

They were on the road thirty minutes later.

The recent rain and the mud in the industrial park made it easy to see that John had turned himself and the truck west, probably headed out of town to catch I-22 headed south. Dean steered the Impala in the opposite direction and kept an eye out for the signs for US 80 East. 

Sam had tried to take the keys, siting Dean's recent episode with nearly passing out, but Dean didn't like anyone else driving his Baby, even Sam. He was also pretty sure his brother had not failed to notice how Sam got stiffer and stiffer in his movements around the trailer while they packed up their stuff. 

Sam was tucked up in the corner of the front seat with his laptop on his knees, but his head was turned to the side and one arm was gingerly wrapped across his midsection, and he wasn't paying any attention to the screen.

'Sam, you sure you're all right?' Dean asked for the third time in the last twenty minutes.

Sam rolled his eyes. 'Jesus, Dean, yes! All right. I'm fine. It's you we ought to be worried about.'

'Me?' Dean lifted a brow. 'He didn't put a finger on me. You're the one he tried to punch a hole through.'

'Yeah, but he didn't, so I'm good. Okay?'

'Fine.' 

Dean gave up and drove on in silence until they hit the edge of town, where he slowed up just a bit before changing lanes to catch the on ramp.

'I'm sorry, Sammy,' he said.

Sam looked over, confused. 'For what?'

Dean signaled and accelerated out into the thin mid-morning traffic on 80 East. 'That you'll miss graduation.'

Sam shrugged. 'It's no big deal. I've got all the grade points I need. I'll come up with some excuse to email in my last assignments and then just send them a PO Box to mail the diploma to.'

'Yeah, but I won't get to see you in the goofy gown and hat now,' Dean smirked.

'Good.' Sam smiled. 'Means you can't tease me about it for the next six months.'

Dean laughed and reached to switch on the radio. Sam grinned and closed his laptop and rested his head against the back of the seat and just watched his brother as they drove down the highway to whatever was next on their path.

——

When Sam unglued his eyelids next, Dean was pulling the Impala into a fairly reputable and busy looking bar and the sun was sinking in the sky. He pushed up in the seat and hissed at the pain in his middle.

Dean threw the car in park and leaned across the seat. 'You okay, little brother?'

'Yeah, just a—crick in the neck,' Sam lied. He turned his face away until he could drag in a full breath, and pretended to be surveying their surroundings. 'Where are we?'

'Somewhere in eastern Ohio. Pennsylvania state line's about fifty miles away.'

'Pennsylvania?'

Dean shrugged. 'Sure. Why not? We haven't been there in a while. Neither of us, or even Dad I think, has a warrant there, and nobody can do those custard filled donut things like the Amish.' 

Dean made a lewd face and did something with his tongue that just looked sinful and made Sam grin and shove him backward. 

'It was the Mennonites, dumb-ass, and they're called Eclairs,' Sam laughed.

'Whatever.' Dean grinned back and then looked out the windshield at the bar. 'You feel up for a hustle? I'm seriously low on cash, and the only credit card I have on me is just about maxed. We need to make some dough before we can find a place to shack up tonight.'

Sam tried to discreetly press a hand to his stomach and test just how tender John's strike had left him, but even the brush of his fingers made his teeth clench. He caught Dean's concerned look and tried to refocus it by leaning forward and looking out the windshield himself. 

'I suppose. But we really don't need to.'

'If you want to sleep in a bed tonight, we do,' Dean said. He frowned a little. 'Probably ought to make a few of these stops in the near future. Build up a reserve. It isn't gonna be so easy when I'm the size of a house, and you can't hustle a table by yourself for shit.'

Sam turned a sympathetic look on his brother, tacitly ignoring the bash on his pool playing skills. 'You're not going to get as big as a house, and even if you do, no one's going to think you're anything except the sexiest pregnant Omega on two legs. And I was serious, you really don't need to.'

'Keep talkin' like that, Sammy, and I'll make you prove it,' Dean drawled. 'So, what? You got something up your sleeve you're not telling me about?'

Sam opened the door. 'Pop the trunk.'

Dean got out and unlocked the trunk and Sam reached in to drag out his duffle, biting the inside of his cheek against the pain that radiated from his midsection. He unzipped the bottom section and pulled out a flat, black leather pouch and handed it over to Dean.

'Like I said…'

Dean unzipped the pouch and his eyes shot wide at the contents. There were several packs of hundred dollar bills paper clipped together, and a few stacks of twenties, and at least half a dozen credit cards.

'All of the credit cards have at least a five thousand dollar limit and none of them have anything charged to them,' Sam said.

'How the hell long have you been holdin' out on me, Sam?' Dean asked as he flipped through the cards.

'Since I was twelve.'

Dean's head shot up. 'What?'

Sam sighed and leaned a hip against the tail light closest to him. 'I told you, Dean. Six years I listened to what he did. I've been planning ever since that first time in Mississippi. You remember?'

'Yeah,' Dean nodded slowly and zipped the pouch back up, tossed it across to Sam and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 'I remember you were there when I woke up. How much did you, uh, actually see?'

'Just the aftermath,' Sam admitted. 'But it was enough, and ever since that day, I've been biding my time, saving, and planning to get you away.'

Dean's shoulders tensed up. 'And if I didn't agree to go?'

Sam shrugged. 'I don't know. I guess in all my scenarios, you always did. But it doesn't matter now, does it.'

Dean shook his head, but he answered slower than Sam expected, and he refused to meet Sam's eyes. 'No, I guess it doesn't.' He tipped a shoulder at the bar. 'You comin' in then?'

'I really don't feel like it, no,' Sam said.

'Suit yourself,' Dean said and reached up to shut the trunk.

Sam caught at his wrist. 'Just don't…drink, okay?'

Dean pulled a face and twisted his wrist free. 'Jesus, Sam, just because you're fucking me doesn't give you the right to tell me when and when not to drink.'

'Actually, it kind of does, but that's not what concerns me right now. ' Sam straightened up and gave Dean a hard look. 'Your drinking isn't going to affect just you, Dean.'

'Who the hell else is it going to—?' Dean cut himself off, a flush coloring his cheeks so hot that he looked away to try to keep Sam from seeing. He shrugged uneasily. 'Yeah, well, whatever.'

Sam wanted to reached out and grab his brother and jerk him back and tell him there was no way in hell he was going into that bar because he'd just showed him that bothering with a hustle wasn't necessary and the only other reason he would go would be to drink, and Sam didn't want him doing that either. There was one other reason, if Sam was willing to admit it to himself, and that was to find a piece of tail. Dean was un-Bonded and unmarked, and therefore a viable mate, and Sam couldn't legitimately stop him if that's what he wanted. It wasn't like John was the only experience Dean had, he was just the most major influence. Omega's were perfectly capable of having sex with other Omegas, or even other Alphas until they were Bonded, the pairings just didn't result in offspring or nearly as high a level of satisfaction, but it certainly wasn't uncommon. 

Sam slunk back around the side of the car and eased down into the shotgun seat. His stomach was really starting to hurt, and his head was aching from trying to figure out exactly what he'd done now to set Dean off and make him mad. He shoved his laptop into his bag and slumped down in the seat and closed his eyes. He'd give Dean a little time to cool off, give his stomach some time to settle, and then maybe go in and get something to eat. That was probably half his problem anyway. Just an empty stomach.

——

'Hey, Sammy…c'mon, little brother, wake up.'

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and rolled his head away from the troublesome voice in his head.

'Sam. Dammit. Open your eyes!'

Sam cracked an eye when he felt a quick, sharp slap to his face. 'Cut it out…'

Dean huffed a relieved breath. 'Nuh-uh, Sammy, not until you get both those peepers open.'

Sam scowled and tried to sit up and rub at his gritty eyes, but a wave of nausea surged up his throat, prickled across the back of his neck, and he only had enough time to throw the Impala's door wide open before he was vomiting onto the pavement.

'Shit.'

He heard Dean get out of the car and come around, saw him swimming in his tear-blurred vision before he hunched up and retched again. Cool hands smoothed his hair back and patted at his cheeks. A calloused thumb slid across his bottom lip and then there was more swearing.

'Dee?' Sam slurred around a tongue that felt thick in his mouth.

'Hey, hey, just…' Dean lifted Sam's head, tried to look in his eyes in the Impala's dim dome light. 'Can you lay back for me? Or are you gonna throw up again?'

'Uh-uh. 'M done. I think,' Sam mumbled and let Dean's hands hold and support him as he sank back to lay across the front seat. Then Dean was rucking up his hoodie and t-shirt and—

'Jesus Christ, Sam…' Dean swore and Sam heard a fist impact the dash.

'Hey, hey,' Sam mumbled, trying like hell to imitate Dean's best pissy look when anyone mistreated his Baby. 'Be nice to her. What'd she do to you?'

Dean's hand came to rest against Sam's cheek, and he turned into it, nuzzling it. 'Dean, can we go home now?'

Dean chuckled, but it was tight and worried. 'Yeah, Sammy. Yeah. But I think we need to make a stop first.'

Sam felt himself maneuvered in the seat again into a partial sitting position, and then the door creaked shut and the car shifted as Dean's weight sank into the driver's seat. 

'Where we stoppin'?' Sam asked sleepily.

Dean threw the car into reverse. 'I think you need a hospital, little brother.'

That got a few more of Sam's synapses firing, and he blinked his eyes several more times and rolled his head to look over at Dean. 'Huh? How come?'

'Sam, you just vomited blood all over the parking lot back there, and you have a bruise the size of Texas across your stomach.'

'Well, that doesn't sound good,' Sam said a little unnecessarily.

'No. No, it really doesn't,' Dean agreed. 

Sam tried to slide up in the seat a little more, rubbed a hand at his eyes. 'What color?'

'Huh? What do you mean, "what color"?' Dean scowled.

'What color was the blood?'

'Fuck, I don't know…' Dean reached to turn the dome light back on and glanced down at his hand. 'Dark, like nearly black, dark.'

'Good.'

'Huh?'

Sam pressed tentatively at the area John had impacted under his ribs. It was tender and hurt like hell, but it didn't feel inordinately swollen or hard as if there was fluid building underneath it. He dropped his hands and tipped his head back on the seat again.

'Just find a motel for tonight. We'll put some ice on it. I should be fine.'

'I know you're smart, Sam, but you're no damn doctor, and even I know that throwing up blood is a bad thing,' Dean protested.

'You said it was dark, nearly black, which means it's old. It must have happened earlier this morning right when he hit me. If it was bright red, that would mean I'm still bleeding somewhere, but it's probably stopped on its own, so…'

Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. 'I don't like it, Sam.'

'We'll ice it tonight. If I throw up anymore, and it's still bloody, you win. We go to the ER,' Sam said.

Dean considered a moment and then gave in. 'Fine.'

——

The motel Dean found was a step above what they were accustomed to and even offered a free continental breakfast.

'Dude, just because we're flush for now, does not mean you can start living the high life,' Sam smirked as Dean got a shoulder under his arm and helped support him up to the room door.

'Hey, we get to splurge when we're injured,' Dean countered. He slipped the keycard into the lock and popped the handle down. 'Besides, you only want the best for your bitch and his pups, right?'

Sam froze, caught Dean's arm in a hard grip and pulled him around to face him. 'Don't joke about that. It's not funny.'

'Aw, c'mon. It's a little funny,' Dean smiled.

Sam shook his head and moved his hand to grip the back of Dean's neck. 'It's really not.'

Dean flushed a little, turned his face toward Sam's hand, and then kissed the inside of his wrist. 'Okay. You're right. I'm sorry, Sammy.'

Sam nodded and let him go. Dean helped him into the room, lowered him to the bed and went back out for their bags. Sam looked around. It was the first room they'd had since they mated during Dean's heat and he was surprised to find only one kingsize bed. He wasn't even sure _why_ it surprised him. It wasn't like there were any appearances to keep up now, and it wasn't like they hadn't shared a bed for most of their lives anyway, but for some reason it warmed something deep in his gut to know that Dean had chosen this room with just one bed for them tonight.

Dean came back with the bags and dropped them inside the door, then swiped the ice bucket from the table. 'Gonna go get us some ice for your gut. You need anything else?'

Sam shook his head, suddenly not trusting himself to speak. Dean paused in the door, came back a step and bent down to get a look in Sam's face. He reached out a hand to rub a thumb over Sam's cheek. 'Hey, you hurtin'?'

Sam swallowed. 'Not any worse than I have been. Why?'

Dean turned his thumb over for Sam to see. It was wet. 

Sam swiped at his eyes. 'Sorry.'

'You gettin' all weepy on me just 'cause I got us a nice room and one bed?' Dean teased gently.

Sam gave his brother a gentle shove and then collapsed back on the bed with an aborted hiss of pain. 'Just go get the ice, man.'

Dean was back a few minutes later and Sam hadn't managed to work up the ambition to move. He listened as Dean rummaged through their bags for clothes, made a makeshift ice pack from the plastic bag in the ice bucket and one of his own old t-shirts, and then started unlacing Sam's boots and pulling them off.

'Come on, you big baby,' Dean said gently. 'Let's get these clothes off and get you in bed.'

Sam let Dean tug and pull and maneuver him, until he was in a pair of sweats and stretched out on the bed where Dean could finally get a good look at him.

'Jesus, Sam…'

Sam lifted his head enough to look down and get a glimpse of the spread of ugly purple and angry red just under his sternum. 

'Guess I don't feel so bad about feeling so bad, now,' he said.

'You sure Dad didn't hit you in the head?' Dean asked. ' 'Cause that didn't even make sense.'

'Just…give me the ice,' Sam said. 

Instead of handing it over, Dean very gently laid it against Sam's bruised skin and flinched a little when Sam sucked in a breath and winced at the weight of it.

'Hurt?'

'Cold.' 

They sat in silence for a long while until Dean broke it. 

'I'm sorry, Sammy.'

Sam cracked an eye. 'What for now?'

'For this.'

Sam opened both eyes. 'You didn't do this. This was Dad.'

'Yeah, well, if I'd had a little more self-control, there wouldn't be any need for him to have hit you like that,' Dean said.

Sam pressed his head back into the pillow and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before he sighed and looked down at Dean. 'Your self-control had nothing to do with it. We either did what we did, or you…'

'Died. Yeah, I got that.' Dean readjusted the ice a little. 'Been there, nearly done that.'

Sam covered Dean's hand over the ice and rolled onto his side, so he could face his brother. 'And you think I'm going to regret it, don't you?'

Dean said nothing.

'I'm not going to regret it,' Sam said firmly. 'Is this what it's about? Is it because you think I'll come to regret being with you, that you won't let me Bond us?'

'No. That's not it,' Dean said, with enough certainty that Sam actually believed him.

'Okay, what then?'

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Let's not go there right now, okay?'

'Okay. Fine.'

More silence.

'You didn't drink anything in there tonight, did you?' Sam finally asked.

'Oh for—! No, I didn't, all right?' Dean slipped his hand from beneath Sam's and got up off the bed, moving away to sit in the chair by the window. 

'I'm sorry, Dean. I just—you smelled like beer, and—'

'It was a goddamn _bar_ , Sam. Of course, I smelled like beer. What did you expect?

'Okay, okay. I'm sorry.' Sam rolled onto his back. 'Forget I said anything.'

Dean sighed heavily and leaned forward on his knees. 'Look, I get that you're the Alpha and all that, and you're gonna feel all protective and shit now that I'm…pregnant.' He swallowed hard on the last word. 'But you've got to remember that I'm still the older brother, and I'm fully capable of taking care of myself, and I don't want you hanging all over me like a damn wet dishrag and trying to tell me what I can and can't do and—'

'Dean! Dean.' Sam held up a hand to stop the tumble of words streaming out of his brother's mouth. 'I've lived with you for eighteen years, man. You think I don't know how you are? And I think we're establishing just who's taking care of who right here tonight.' 

He gestured down at himself, and Dean gave him a slightly sheepish smile. 

'I wasn't trying to tell you what to do,' Sam continued more gently. 'I was just trying to tell you I was concerned, and I want you to take care of yourself…because it isn't just you either of us needs to worry about anymore.' He reached out a hand to Dean. 'Now, come back here. Please.'

Dean got up and came back to the bed, picked up the ice where it had slipped when Sam reached for him and gently pressed it back against his stomach. 'Next time just—I don't know—hit me over the head with a frying pan or somethin'. It'd probably be easier and get the point across faster.'

Sam grinned and grazed his fingertips down Dean's cheek. 'I'll keep it mind. Now, why don't you get undressed and come lay down and enjoy this big bed with me.'

Dean grinned back. 'Just don't fall asleep in the next two minutes and sprawl your Sasquatch self over three-quarters of it.'

Sam laughed and watched Dean close the bathroom door, still grinning to himself. 

He readjusted the ice again, flinched a little at the fresh rush of cold, and then lay back with his arm crooked behind his head and tried to relax. His mind would not quit working over Dean's quick and firm denial of his suggestion that future regrets on Sam's part might be the reason he wouldn't allow Sam to complete the Bond. He figured it must have something to do with Dean's view of himself, and that was just one more thing on the ever growing list of shit John had done to his son for which Sam wanted to choke him, and come hell, high water, or vengeful spirits unbound, he was going to find a way to convince his brother that he was all Sam had _ever_ wanted and _would_ ever want for the whole of his life.


	5. Chapter 5

Sometime during the night they had changed positions. 

One or the other of them had thrown the half melted bag of ice and damp t-shirt into the floor, and they had rolled over so that Dean was now tucked into the long curve of Sam's body.

Sam's back was to the window, and the little light that crept through the space in the drapes just grazed the ends of Dean's mussed blond hair and turned them gold. Sam smiled and brushed light, sleepy fingertips through the soft, short strands. Dean made a sound in his sleep, but didn't wake, and pressed further back into Sam's chest. At Dean's shifting against him, Sam was pleasantly surprised to discover the pain in his midsection was about half what it had been the night before and could now be equated to the strain of doing too many crunches in too short a time. No visit to the ER then, that was somewhat of a relief. 

His arm had found its way around Dean's waist during the night and if he were to move his hand just an inch or two down…

Dean made another soft sound as Sam's hand spread wide and tentative across his belly. Sam stilled, but Dean didn't stir all the way to waking, so he settled the weight of his hand against his brother's middle and just lay there in the still and quiet and enjoyed the moment. There wasn't so much as a flutter under his palm, and he really hadn't expected there to be, but it still felt good to know there was life there and that it had been created by the two of them. 

He hadn't realized he'd started to doze again until he felt the brush of fingers across the back of his hand. He started to pull away, sure Dean would not be thrilled about his little brother's touchy-feely-ness, when Dean's fingers laced with his own and pressed them more firmly against his belly. 

' 'S nice,' he mumbled sleepily.

Sam was speechless, chest so full he couldn't have spoken if his life depended on it, so he just dipped his head down and kissed the back of Dean's neck leaving a soft, sweet trail across his skin.

' 'S nice, too,' Dean murmured, and Sam could hear the smile in his voice.

'You…don't mind?'

'Which part?'

Sam moved his hand under Dean's a little to indicate his cradling the barest curve of his brother's full belly.

'Mmmm. Try doing it in public, I'll brain you, but…no. I don't mind.' He paused, pulled in a breath, and Sam waited. 'I can, uh…feel them.'

Sam started, eyes gone wide, and stopped mid-kiss to the soft spot behind Dean's jaw. 'Y-you can? Already?'

Dean shrugged fractionally. 'Yeah. Kinda, a little. It's sorta like…being tickled from the inside.'

Sam dropped his face into the curve of Dean's neck and just breathed. Dean squeezed at his hand.

'You're not goin' all girly on me, are you?'

Sam shook his head, closing his eyes against the rush of happy tears there.

'Good,' Dean said with a smirk. ' 'Cause that's my job. Me being pregnant and all.'

'Shut-up,' Sam whispered, lips curving against Dean's shoulder.

'There's my smile,' Dean said softly, and turned his head as far back as he could so that Sam could kiss him fiercely on the mouth.

'I love you,' Sam murmured against Dean's lips. 'Love you so much.'

Dean stilled, and Sam pulled back a fraction, fear clenching at his heart. The words had just slipped out. He hadn't meant to say them out loud. They didn't do that. Not unless someone was dying, at any rate. Winchester code and all. And this 'I love you' had a completely different meaning than all the others that had passed between them before.

Dean shifted forward to close the distance between them and pressed his lips, soft and chaste, to Sam's.

'Love you, too.'

Something hot and sharp shot through Sam and wrenched a sob up from his chest. He crushed his mouth to Dean's, slid his hand into his hair and held him, and opened his palm even wider against his belly and pressed it close to let his brother know that the love he felt was all encompassing. Tears slid down his cheeks and mingled with their kissing, but Dean didn't pull away, and he didn't tease. He just let his brother cry and kiss him until they were both breathless.

'Want you, Dean,' Sam murmured when he pulled away. He rolled his hips up, rocked them into the warm crevice of Dean's buttocks to prove his point. Dean tipped his hips back and pushed Sam's hand lower down his belly until the hard length of his cock brushed the backs of their interlocked hands.

Sam groaned, disentangled their fingers, and hooked a thumb into the waistband of his sweats and jerked them down. He pressed his naked cock against Dean's ass, felt him gasp at the searing heat, and rocked forward until his swollen head was pushing against his brother's hot, ready opening. Dean's body responded immediately with a wet gush of slick between his thighs that dripped down the length of Sam's cock.

'Want you so bad,' Sam whispered again and slid forward an inch to push his cock harder against Dean's tight opening. 'Want to be in you, Dean.'

Dean was beyond being able to speak and just pushed back. He wriggled and spread himself open and rolled his hips until Sam could slide up and into him, push past his clenching muscles to fill him and stretch him. 

'God, Dean, that's good...so good,' Sam crooned. He shifted his hips, pulled out, and then thrust back in slow and easy. Dean moaned loud and low and clenched around him. 'That's it...yes, oh Jesus, yes...so tight...'

He cupped his hand across Dean's forehead, pulled his head back to bare his throat and opened his mouth, all wet and hot, against the throbbing pulse point below his jaw. Not thinking, he let his teeth scrape across the tender skin. Dean twitched hard and tensed against him.

'Shhh...shhh,' Sam murmured and stroked the spot with his tongue. 'I won't. I promise I won't until you're ready.'

Dean relaxed and Sam rolled his hips again to stroke out and back in, long and slow and sure. Dean relaxed further and pushed back to take Sam deeper inside himself. 

'Sam, I—you've got to understand—'

'It's okay,' Sam reassured softly. 'It's okay.'

 Dean said nothing more as Sam continued to thrust in a slow, easy rhythm that kept carrying them both right up to the edge, and then let them drift back, like the tides on the ocean. Dean fisted the pillow beneath his head, as Sam stroked his cock in time with his thrusts, and kept up a constant litany of sweet low moans and whimpers that zinged across Sam's nerve endings and made his blood beat faster and harder in his ears. His knot started to swell and drag and Dean groaned with the incredible stretch to his insides.

Sam thrust one last time, deep and hard, kept up his stroking to Dean's thick, throbbing cock until his brother caught at his wrist, gasping,

'Sam, I can't…gonna…gotta come, Sam!'

The words weren't even out of his mouth before Dean was shooting hot, sticky wet ropes onto his belly and Sam's hand. Sam felt the incredible tightening of Dean's muscles around his buried cock and grunted with the pressure just before his knot popped with enough force to make him see stars for nearly a full minute while his hips stuttered through the rippling aftershocks of his release.

'Wow,' Sam breathed when his brain came back online enough to form words again. 

Dean just moaned into the pillow.

'That good I struck you speechless, huh?' Sam teased.

Dean moaned again and pushed up on an elbow.

'Dean?'

Dean moved suddenly, lurched for the side of the bed, but Sam's knot was still too swollen to release, and he hissed against the tugging pain when Dean tried to scramble away. Sam grabbed him around the hips and tried to hold him, but Dean clawed for the edge of the bed, grabbed at the trashcan under the table, and managed to lift himself up and over just in time to vomit into it.

Feeling Dean throw up from the inside was not a pleasant experience. All of his muscles clenched up hard in an effort to help him empty his stomach, and Sam's jaw snapped tight against the pain of those muscles gripping at his oversensitive cock. Dean relaxed for just a second, tried to take a deep breath, but gagged and threw up again.

Sam shifted forward so Dean wasn't pulling against him, and lifted up on his arm so he could support Dean's chest while he dry heaved over the side of the bed. The whole thing seemed to go on forever, at least a good five minutes, with Dean just starting to come down and be able to take a decent breath when the urge to heave would overtake him again and double him over.

When he finally managed to take two breaths together and nodded at Sam's questioning sound as to whether he thought he was finished or not, Dean was shaking and sweaty and pale and it was all he could do to inch back across the mattress and collapse into Sam's arms.

Sam stroked his forehead and back into his hair, slow and gentle, and murmured all the soft nonsense Dean had taught him on the floors of bathrooms through bouts of flu and huddled in the corners of musty couches or the backseat of the Impala when he was banged up or broken or bruised from a fight or a hunt.

'God, give a guy a reaction like that and you'll end up breaking my ego, dude,' Sam teased gently.

'Ha ha,' Dean replied, hoarse from all the throwing up and muffled by the pillow. Sam looped his arm closer around his chest and squeezed carefully in reassurance.

'Dean, has it been this bad since it started? he asked, quiet concern in his voice.

Dean shook his head. 'Worst yet, but it's kind of on a steady decline.'

'Maybe we should get you checked out.'

' 'Sposed to be like this, isn't it?' Dean asked tiredly.

'Well, to a certain degree at first, yeah, until your body gets used to it.'

Dean nodded. 'Maybe the drugs.'

Sam frowned. He hadn't really taken the time to do any research on the side effects of the medication Dean had been on for the last six years after its treatment was stopped. He'd have to look into it.

'Maybe. We'll keep an eye on you. If it gets any worse, or more persistent, we'll have to take you to a doctor.'

Dean didn't say anything, and when Sam stopped to listen, he heard the soft whuffling of his brother's snores into the pillow. He settled his arm more firmly around Dean's chest, tugged him a little closer, and closed his eyes. They had nowhere to be anymore, except with each other, so there was time to sleep for as long as Dean needed.

——

Days rolled over into weeks and Dean didn't get any better, but he didn't really get any worse either, so they just kept doing what they were doing. 

He had taken them across the state line into Pennsylvania, and they meandered around the south-western part of the state and worked their way slowly north, and though he really hadn't had any intentions of staying, Dean's exhausting bouts of anytime-of-day-sickness were making it shit to be on the road. So, when Sam suggested they find a place to stay, maybe until the pups came, Dean relented easier than expected. Sam knew, too, that pretty soon his brother's instincts were going to kick in, and he would need to start nesting and make a secure place for their pups to arrive in the world. 

They found an out of the way place between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in the from of a little gatehouse with a loft for rent from an old farmer who was pretty introverted but amiable, and the price was cheap for the snug little building that had no holes in the roof, no drafty windows, and an ample supply of hot running water.

There was an established community of Werewolves close by, something that Sam had taken into consideration in his search for a place to at least tentatively and temporarily call 'home,' entertaining the idea that they might be able to call on medical help from their own if they needed it when Dean gave birth.

'It's nice,' Sam said on a warm afternoon about a week after they'd arrived. He sat down on the well-worn patchwork quilt that covered the bed. 'Even got a kingsize bed. Can't beat that.'

Dean made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat and stayed looking out the wide window at the unbroken view of forest and foothills a few miles away. Sam leaned back on his hands and just drank in the sight. Afternoon light was coming in and limbing his brother in gold, tracing out his broad shoulders and slim hips, the slight bow in his legs, and the bump of his belly that was just pressing against his t-shirts now days.

It was no secret Dean wasn't comfortable with his body the way it was changing. He'd had too much of his natural Omega drilled out of him to be happy about sporting a growing belly, and Sam tried not to make things worse by lavishing too much attention on the swell, but he couldn't help the fact that his brother, pregnant and rounded out with his pups, was probably the single biggest turn on Sam had ever encountered.

He shifted on the bed and put a hand to his crotch, physically pushing against the evidence of his arousal, and stood up to go stand by Dean at the window.

'Pretty, huh?'

Dean nodded absently. Sam kept half an eye on him as he pretended to admire the view and saw one of Dean's hands come up to stroke his belly. Sam turned his shoulder into the window frame and folded his arms.

'Hey, you okay?'

'Yeah'

'Feeling sick again?'

Dean shook his head, looked down to where his hand rested, and Sam thought he caught the glimmer of a tear in the corner of his eye before Dean squeezed them tight shut and turned away.

'Four hours in one spot and I've already got cabin fever,' Dean said with forced lightness. 'Come on. Let's go get a drink.'

Sam scowled. 'You can't drink right now.'

Dean rolled his eyes. 'A coke, you jerk. Now, c'mon.'

Sam shook his head and followed.

Dean had a sixth sense for finding the best burgers in a town, and the sports bar they landed at forty minutes later was no exception. It was packed even on a Wednesday night so they had to sit at the bar, but the smells coming from the kitchen were making Sam's mouth water from the moment he stepped in the place. 

The burgers when they arrived were thick, juicy, and cooked to perfection, and it made Sam happier than a clam with a prized pearl to see Dean's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas when he took his first bite. The man had an unhealthy relationship with greasy food, Sam swore it, and the whole thing would likely disagree with him later that night, but it was almost worth it just to see his brother's face in that moment. 

Sam had hoped as the weeks passed that things would get better. That being free of John and on their own would drain the tension out of Dean's shoulders or at least let him share some of it with Sam. He had hoped that being pregnant would eventually grow on Dean, that he would let himself relax into and enjoy it, let himself feel how good it was to be full and his body satisfied with what it wanted and needed. But that hadn't happened, and Sam was catching Dean more and more often in moments like those a couple hours ago at the window in their loft. Dean with that lost, lonely look in his eyes, and like he was about to say something—ask for something—but didn't know how.

Dean moaned softly beside Sam as he licked his fingers clean.

'Dude, that is almost indecent,' Sam said. 'Are you trying to turn me on?'

Dean flashed him a grin. 'Is it working?'

Sam rolled his eyes and threw down his napkin. 'I'm going to use the restroom.'

Dean caught his wrist as he turned away and pulled him down to whisper in his ear, 'Need some help jerking off, little brother?'

Sam flushed and choked a little. He swung his gaze to meet Dean's. 'Well, I might now, thanks.'

Dean laughed out loud and released his hand, waggling his eyes brows at him as he walked away. 

Sam did have to wait a good two minutes for his hard-on to go down before he could actually manage to do his business, and by the time he was wending his way back through the crowd, a trifecta of unsavory characters with badly cut suits and cheap cologne had taken up station between him and Dean.

'Well, look what we have here,' Sam could pick out over the low din. 'An unmarked bitch.'

Dean turned toward the tallest of the group with his classic, deadpan smile that anyone with two braincells to rub together would normally turn and run from, but these guys didn't have that many cells between the three of them apparently. Sam shoved forward, but got caught by a giggling group of girls that were three-quarters drunk and kept getting under his feet.

'Oh, and one with a litter in his belly at that,' he heard one of the other's say. 'Kind of dangerous for you to be in a place like this by yourself. Maybe we should take you home and take care of you.'

Sam's blood lit on fire. He bodily picked up one of the drunk girls and set her aside, dodged a waitress with a full tray and two pitchers of beer, and was an arm's length behind the last guy who'd opened his trap when Dean was suddenly up and moving.

It happened almost too fast for Sam to follow. The tallest one's head met the bar top with a sickening crack, the one who hadn't spoken but made the mistake of hanging too close to Dean's shoulder got an elbow to the gut that put him on his knees, and the last one to speak got Dean's thumb under his jaw and was pushed up on the tips of his toes, scrabbling at Dean's wrist and yelping as Dean bore into the pressure point.

'Trouble?' Sam asked through gritted teeth.

'Nope,' Dean said, that diamond hard smile still in place. He dragged the man he was holding down level with his eyes and made sure he could see Sam off to his right. 'See that guy there? I belong to him. Now, he may look a bit light and lanky, but I really wouldn't test him 'cause he's been able to put me on the ground since he was fifteen.'

Dean let the guy hang an eternal moment and contemplate what he'd just said while Sam's guts churned, caught between fury at the men who'd just tried to attack his brother and the inexplicable warmth of pride at how well Dean could handle himself and how he'd dispensed such liberal praise so publicly on his little brother.

'Now, pick up your friends and get lost,' Dean spat and thrust the guy away so that he stumbled over the one whose head Dean had cracked on the bar and let slide to the floor.

The three men gathered themselves clumsily and scurried away under Dean's cold glare.

The minute their backs were turned, Dean swayed and reached for the bar. 'Fuck.'

'Dean?' Sam was beside him and had a discreet arm tucked around him in less time than it took Dean to suck in his next breath.

'Fine…I'm fine, Sam,' Dean said, but he shifted his weight against Sam and let his brother hold him up. 'Let's just…get outta here, huh?'

They made their way out of the bar and into the cool, fresh evening air. Dean handed over the keys without even being asked, and Sam pointed them back toward their newly acquired home.

'Go ahead and say it,' Dean finally said from the passenger seat after the silence in the car had gotten so thick that Sam was tempted to open a window just to let it out.

'Say what?'

Dean sighed in exasperation. 'Whatever's running though your head that's causing all the steam to come out your ears.'

Sam snorted. Not nicely. 'What? Like how if you'd let me Bond us, then none of that would have happened? Like how not only you, but our pups, too, were just threatened by a trio of drunken assholes that were pretty interested in just one thing? You mean like that?'

'Yeah. Like that,' Dean said and looked away out the window. 'Didn't bother to notice how I was pretty much able to handle them all just fine, did you?'

'Oh, yeah, I did notice that…right up until the second you nearly passed out!'

'I would have been fine.'

Sam smacked his palm against the steering wheel. 'I don't get you, Dean. I just don't. I've been trying to give you time. I don't want to force anything on you, because God knows you've had enough of that, but shit like this…? I can't sit still for it, Dean. I won't take the risk. Not to you. Not to our pups.'

'No, Sam,' Dean said quietly. 'The answer is still 'no'.'

'Jesus fucking Christ, Dean!' Sam exploded, knuckles going white on the steering wheel. 'So, what? I'm allowed to fuck you senseless and put a litter of pups in your belly, but hell be damned if I'm allowed to Bond with you? So that I can fucking protect you? Can protect our _family_?'

Dean flinched, and Sam saw how hard he tried not to let his palms slide up over the curve of his belly, but he couldn't help it. Sam swore under his breath and bit the inside of his lips hard. Of course he couldn't help it, because his first instinct was just as strong as Sam's even if he wasn't voicing it—to protect the life growing inside him against any threat…even Sam.

They drove the rest of the way in silence and the second Sam threw the Impala into park, Dean was out of the car and taking the stairs two at a time to their loft. Sam stayed behind for a few minutes and scrubbed at the angry tears that burned in his eyes and tried to steady his racing heart before he finally pushed open the door and followed.

When he got upstairs, the bathroom door was closed, and he could hear the sounds of Dean heaving behind it. He sighed in frustration and went to sit on the overstuffed couch that had seen better days but was still soft and welcomed his lanky limbs when he sank down into it. 

Ten minutes later, Dean finally opened the door. He was pale and his eyes were red, and Sam felt like shit because he had a pretty good idea that he was to blame for most of that. He started to get up, but Dean put his hand out to stop him. He swayed a little, caught himself in the doorframe, took a couple of breaths, and then raised his eyes to Sam's.

'Sam, I think I know what you're thinking is stopping me saying 'yes' to you, but you're wrong.'

Sam's eyes widened a little. He had expected angry silence, or maybe a duel of words tonight, but not this, not what sounded an awful lot like stark honesty.

'You think my refusing you has something to do with how I see myself,' Dean went on, holding Sam's gaze. 

'Yeah. Yeah, I do,' Sam admitted.

Dean shrugged a little. 'Maybe it does, on some level, but that's not the whole of it, not the main reason. I'm not worried about you ever leaving me, or not being interested anymore, or regretting your decision a few years down the road. I raised you, watched you your whole life, and you, Sam Winchester, when you make up your mind on something, you never let it go.'

Sam was stunned. 'Okay, then…what? I don't understand. Why won't you let me?'

'Because I might die.'

Sam choked, breath knocked from his lungs as sure as if Dean had physically punched him. 'W-What?'

Dean shook his head. 'It might not happen tomorrow, or next week, or even in the next ten years, but it might happen, and that would leave you alone.'

'Dean, I don't understand. What are you saying?' Sam leaned forward.

'Sammy, you've only ever known Dad the way he is now.'

'What has he got to do with this?' 

'More than you know.' Dean moved to sit on the end of the bed, bracing himself with his hands at his sides on the edge of the mattress. 'I remember the man he was before. Before Mom died. Before he lost his Bonded life mate.'

Sam flopped back in the cushions. 'Christ…'

Because the thought had never occurred to him. How it never had, he didn't know. He was smarter than that, but anger had blinded him for years, had kept him from seeing the broken husk of the man their father really was. Something he should have been able to see even without the comparison Dean had.

'He went crazy, Sammy,' Dean said quietly. 'Stark, raving crazy. You don't remember Uncle Bobby at all, but if it hadn't been for him that first year, we'd probably all be dead. He couldn't control himself, with anyone or anything. He was drinking constantly, flying into blind rages. He couldn't take care of us.' He ducked his head a little. 'He couldn't even look at you for nearly three years.'

'He still hardly ever does,' Sam said softly.

'I know, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that you had to grow up with that. I tried to make up for it—'

'You did,' Sam said, heart stuck up in his throat. He stood up and went over to the bed, sat down beside his brother, but didn't touch him, didn't hinder the the outpouring of whatever this was. 

'You did,' he repeated softly.

Dean nodded his acknowledgment with a sad smile and leaned into Sam's shoulder just a little. 'The point I'm trying to make here, Sam, is that I don't ever want to be the cause of that for you. I couldn't stand to see that happen to you.' He gave a harsh laugh. 'Suppose I wouldn't actually anyway, 'cause I'd be dead, but you get my point.'

Sam laughed. It was miserable and sad and broken, and he bent his head to the curve of Dean's neck, already feeling the tears surging upward and wanting to hide like he had when he was six years old. Dean lifted a hand to sift it through Sam's hair.

'Now, do you understand why I keep saying 'no'?' 

Dean's voice was hoarse and full of tears and it made Sam's heart hurt even worse.

'You're protecting me,' Sam choked out. 'Just like you always have.'

Dean nodded against his hair, placed a gentle kiss to the top of his head. 'Yeah. Just like I always will. 'Cause you're still my baby brother, and I love you, Sammy. More than anything in the world.'

Sam wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and pulled him in, crushing him as close and hard as he dared without hurting him or the pups. He pressed his lips to Dean's ear and whispered fiercely,

'Then you know how it feels. You know what it feels like for me to want this—to _need_ this—between us. Please, Dean. Please! Let me have this. Let me take care of you. Let me take care of _them_.'

Sam slipped his hand down to curve against the side of Dean's belly. Dean sucked in a breath at the contact and covered his hand quickly, pressing it tight.

'I want to, Sam. I want it. I can't tell you how much I do. I want them to know they belong to you, I do, but…'

Sam pulled back, looked Dean in the eye. 'It's a risk. I know. But our lives have been nothing but risks from the very beginning, and this is one I'm willing to take.'

'Sam, I can't—'

Sam shook his head, cupped the back of Dean's head and held him firm. 'You can't make my decisions for me…anymore than I can make yours for you,' he whispered.

For a moment, Sam was sure Dean was still going to refuse him, that he was going to pull away and the decision would be made for good and all, and Sam would never be allowed to Bond them. Dean's eyes were bright and piercing and greener than Sam had ever seen them before as he stared back at his brother for what felt like a small eternity. Finally, Dean nodded, very slowly, and then he tilted his head to the side, reached for the collar of his shirt and pulled it out of the way.

'Just…don't get blood on it. It's one of my favorites,' Dean said.

It was a weak attempt at humor, but Sam laughed anyway because he was nervous now, just as nervous as Dean was to be driven to make the joke. 

Sam hooked his fingers in Dean's collar and pulled it down. He dipped his head and laved his tongue across the juncture at Dean's neck and shoulder, breathed in the scent of him, a scent that would be a thousand times richer and stronger in just a few seconds. He opened his mouth against his brother's skin, suckled at the spot for a long time, drawing the blood up to the surface, until Dean was trembling and leaning into him.

'Please, Sammy…please. Do it,' Dean begged.

Sam opened his mouth further, felt his canines lengthen and prick at his bottom lip, scraped them gently across the tender, thin skin.

'Yes…' Dean breathed.

Sam sank his teeth in.

Blood welled up, filled his mouth, overrode his senses and sent him into an unrecoverable tailspin of sensations. The earthy, sweet scent that Sam identified with his brother—had taken comfort in for as far back as his memory would reach—crashed over him, amplified to such a degree that he felt it like a physical presence in the room, at the same time a weight that he had to carry and a foundation that he knew would support him for the rest of his life. He breathed in deeply, let the scent filter into his blood, merge with his every cell, and become a part of him. There would never be a time in his life ever again that he would be alone because _this_ would always be with him. Forever and ever, from this moment forward, he would be aware of every change in mood, every thought, every heartbeat that was his brother and his mate.

Hands lowered him back to the bed, carded through his hair, pressed against his damp cheeks, and thumbed over his tingling lips.

'Heady stuff, huh?' Dean said in a whisper. 

Sam blinked, focused on the brilliant green only inches away that was suddenly so much more than just green. It was every shade, imagined and real, of every kind of green that had ever been, but it was what was behind the green, welling up from within that made Sam's chest feel like it would well and truly shatter from the intensity of love bursting inside him.

_I love you, Sammy…we love you…always and forever…you'll never be alone…love you, Sammy._

It was a litany, a prayer, a continuous confession that whispered all through his mind and body, and Sam had no idea how on earth he had ever lived a day of his life without it now that he had it.

He pulled in a shuddering breath. His eyes spotted the blood still welling a little at Dean's throat and he immediately leaned up to lick it away, soothing the small wounds with a soft press of his tongue and lips. He collapsed back on the bed, feeling like he'd run a marathon.

'Okay?' Dean asked.

Sam marveled at the way he could not just hear the concern in his brother's— _mate's_ —voice but could feel it in his blood, smell it in the air.

'Y-Yeah,' he stuttered. 'Yeah, I think so.'

Dean stroked his cheek. 'Good?'

'Like being high,' Sam chuckled. 'I think? Never been, so I'm not sure, but it's…'

Dean nodded his understanding. Sam frowned a little.

'This what it's like for you?'

Dean shook his head. 'No, not quite. I don't think. Guess I wouldn't really know, but the way the process has been described—Omega's are broken into their Alpha in stages. Not quite the same shock and rush. The more you mate with me, the more attuned I become to you, what you need, what you want.'

'What? Through just the act?'

'Nope. You get it through my blood, and I get it through your—'

Sam flushed. 'Oh…Oh! Holy crap. I had no idea.'

Dean grinned. 'Boy Wonder Research doesn't know about his own physiology? I find that hard to believe.'

'Well, it's not like they covered it in school, Dean. Besides, I always just figured it was kind of…instinct.'

'It is. That's why you wanted it so badly after we were together the first time, but there's a science behind it, too,' Dean said.

Sam smiled, thumbed Dean's cheek. 'That's really cool. You knowing that when I didn't.'

Dean gave him a light punch to the shoulder. 'I'm not a total idiot, you know.'

Sam caught his fist, turned it up and pried open his fingers to kiss into the center of his palm. 'Never said you were. You're one of the smartest guys I know. You figured out how to deal with me. That makes you pretty damn perfect.'

'Okay, let's not push it,' Dean said and started to roll away. Sam caught him and pulled him back.

'Wait. I want to…' 

Sam framed both his hands over the low swell of Dean's belly, pressing his palms in against the curve. Dean's breath hitched in his chest and his eyes flew wide for a second, one hand locking around Sam's bicep.

'You okay? Did I hurt you?' Sam asked, suddenly confused and worried.

'No…no.' Dean blinked a couple of times, covered one of Sam's hands. 'No, it was just…intense, I guess.'

'Intense, good?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I think so.'

Dean relaxed under Sam's hands and let his brother just lay there and hold the weight of his belly between his palms for a long minute.

'Feel anything?' he finally asked.

Sam's brow furrowed a little. 'Yeah…yeah, I think I can feel them, or…' he paused, brow pulling down further as he tried to analyze this new and incredible sensation of energy cradled in his hands, but at the same time singing in his blood.

'No, not… _them_ ,' he said slowly. His eyes flicked up. 'Dean, I think there's just…one.'

Dean jerked liked he'd been hit with a live wire.

Sam leaned up on his elbow. 'Dean? Dean what's wrong?'

Dean sat up, rolled to the end of the bed, and sat there clutching at the quilt. His face had gone pale and his brow was prickled with sweat. Sam could feel an intense fear building up, the scent was thick and heavy in the air, and his gut was churning and clenching in turns, threatening to rebel at any second.

'Dean, talk to me. What the hell happened? Did I hurt you? Is something wrong?' Sam reached to take his face and turn him, and he almost wished he hadn't.

Dean's eyes were wide and terrified, shining with tears. He ran a shaking hand across his mouth and shook his head in desperate denial before he whispered,

'Jesus, fuck, he was right, Sammy.'


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get a family history lesson.

Sam's fingers trembled as he tried to hold the phone steady in the dark of the bathroom and thumb through Dean's contact list.

John's number was listed three different ways in his brother's phone: John Winchester, Dad, and ICE.

John wasn't known for answering his phone unless it suited him, but Sam didn't know how much time he had, or what else he needed to know and how fast, so he thumbed the number under ICE.

The line rang only once before John picked up.

'Dean?'

Sam swallowed. 'Dad?'

Silence.

'Sam. How is he?'

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose hard. 'Dad, we need to—I need to talk to you about—'

'There's only one, isn't there?'

Sam swallowed again. 'Yeah, but I don't understand. Why does it matter? I mean, I know it's kind of rare for us, but why's he so scared, Dad? What does he think is wrong with him?'

John sighed heavily on the other end of the line. 'How much has he told you?'

'Nothing. He just said that…you were right.'

'Dammit,' John swore quietly, then said a little louder, 'Let's hope that I'm not. Let's hope that everything I've done, all the precautions I've tried to take, that none of them were actually necessary.'

'Dad, you're scaring the hell out of me,' Sam said, his voice much smaller and younger than he wanted it to sound.

'I know, son,' John said softly. 'I know, and I wish I could say it was all going to be all right, but I don't know that for sure. We won't for a while yet.'

'Dad, just tell me what the fuck is going on!' Sam burst out, then clapped a hand over his mouth and listened hard for any sounds from the main room. Dean was asleep, finally, and Sam didn't want him woken for anything.

'Where are you, Sam?'

'Pennsylvania.' He thought hard about telling his father any more. He really didn't believe the man would hurt either of them, and probably not his pups—pup, he corrected himself—but it was still hard to trust him even when they needed his help. 'Head north on 19 from Wilkes-Barre and take the Old Forge exit.'

There was the sound of paper rustling in the background, a finger running over a well worn map. 'I can be there in six hours.'

Sam checked the time on the phone. 2 am. 'Where are you?'

'Mid-state Ohio.'

Sam's stomach flipped. 'Are you following us?'

More silence. 'Yes. Because I was afraid. Of this.'

'There's a diner in town, "Merry Maude's." Dean likes the coffee. We'll meet you at nine,' Sam said after a long, tense minute.

'I'll be there, and Sam?'

'Yeah.'

'Sam, I know things aren't…right between us, and I haven't ever told you everything, but you've got to believe me when I tell you that I've never lied to you.'

Sam nodded slowly in the dark even though there was no one to see. 'I believe you.'

The line went dead.

——

Dean didn't do hysterical. He was more the catatonic type.

After his terrified whispered confession that had sent Sam's heart rate into overdrive, Dean had pretty much just shut down. Sam had undressed him, tucked him up under the covers like Dean had always done for him when he'd been suffering from some overwhelming fear or trauma, and then laid down beside him and held him close for nearly three hours until his body's constant trembling exhausted him and he closed his eyes and finally fell asleep.

Sam's brain was working too fast and too hard to let sleep take him, though, and he had gotten up and scoured the internet for anything—with nothing to go on but Dean's sudden fear of the single pup inside him—that may explain what was going on. Unfortunately, there wasn't much on the internet, beyond the lore piece-mealed together by human Hunters on werewolves, and that certainly didn't involve their mating habits or anything having to do with gestation and birth. Sam wasn't even sure the humans realized there were different classes of werewolves. The community itself certainly didn't publish anything of value, not even in the places that only another werewolf would know to look. Had John been more the 'pack' type and retained any of the ties he had in the past, _if_ he had any, then Sam may have been able to call on those; but as it stood, he was flying blind and alone, and the only person he _could_ call on he really didn't want to.

It had taken him a good forty-five minutes to work up the courage, although that was the wrong word because he wasn't really afraid just mistrustful, to call John. He'd spent too many years of his life angry at the man, hating him on one level or the other, and it was a blow to his…pride? That he had to make the call now.

The conversation had gone better than he anticipated really, and now his alarm was buzzing softly on his phone to remind him that he had a breakfast date to keep at 9am. 

He'd only gotten maybe two or three hours of sleep, and his eyes were dry and gritty from staring at the laptop screen for so long in the dark last night. He knuckled at them and rolled over to find the bed empty.

His heart flew into his throat and panic flooded his veins until he pulled in a breath that told him Dean was still nearby and safe. But sick. The unmistakable sounds of dry heaving were coming from behind the bathroom door.

Sam slid off the bed, went to the door that had been left ajar. Dean hardly ever did that. He had a thing about being weak or sick or injured in front of anyone, even Sam, so he usually barricaded himself off from everyone at times like that. Sam took the open door as either a plea for help or just a simple change in the dynamics of their relationship since they were now officially Bonded. He knocked lightly.

'Dean?'

Dean didn't answer, but he didn't yell for Sam to leave him alone, either, so he pushed the door open and found Dean on his knees, one arm braced on the edge of the old claw foot tub, the other wrapped around his belly as if he were trying to cradle or protect the life inside him from the violence of his own body. Sam knelt wordlessly behind him, wrapped an arm around his chest to take his weight and steady him and held his head as he retched again, bringing up nothing but a thin trickle of bile.

He had no idea how long Dean had been at this, but it went on for at least another ten minutes until his brother was nearly crying out of frustration because he couldn't hardly get a breath in before it was punched out of him by another round of heaving. When it finally abated, he fell back in Sam's arms, sweaty, shaky, and whimpering, and buried his face against Sam's chest. His arms were both wrapped tight now across the swell of his belly, and Sam mimicked the gesture, pulling him in tight to let him know that he didn't have to rely on just his own strength to protect his pup. Sam was there, too, and he'd do anything to keep them both safe.

After another good ten minutes of sitting on the cool bathroom tiles and letting Dean calm down and get his breath back, Sam said quietly,

'We need to get going. Think you can get showered on your own?'

Dean nodded tiredly. 'Where we goin'?'

'Just…trust me?' Sam hated saying the words, knew exactly how much like their father he sounded in that moment. Dean tensed a little, but didn't balk, and that made Sam feel even worse because he didn't want that. Alpha or no, Bonded or not, he didn't want Dean to ever back down from his own natural inclinations without question or see Sam in any way as similar to their father. He cupped his brother's cheek, kissed his brow.

'I called someone last night…for some help.'

Dean tilted his head back. 'You called him, didn't you?'

Sam nodded tightly. Dean had not had any contact with their father that Sam was aware of after the round he and John had gone in that trailer in Michigan. He had never expressed any opinion on his feelings for John, either, after the shot he'd taken at Sam that could have killed him. So, Sam wasn't sure now how Dean was going to react to Sam asking for his help.

'Never thought I'd see the day…' Dean shook his head and tried to roll forward and get up on his knees. Sam steadied him and gave him a strong arm to lever up on. 'Okay, Sammy. Your call. When are we meeting him?'

'Nine.'

Dean just nodded and walked out of the bathroom to grab his clothes.

——

Sam wasn't really sure just how much he was asking of his brother to present himself in a public setting to their dad, Bonded and obviously pregnant, because Dean was just coming up on the half-way point in a normal werewolf gestation cycle, but he was pretty damn sure it was a lot; and he was more proud than he could ever put into words the way Dean kept his shoulders back and half a step in front of Sam—counter to the position an Omega normally took with an Alpha mate—and left his jacket in the car even though the flannel he wore disguised the curve of his rounded belly but didn't hide entirely.

Sam kept a hand at the small of his brother's back, possessive and supportive in the same moment, a warning to John and a reassurance to Dean. 

John had chosen a booth at the back of the diner, out of the way, but with clear lines of sight, holding very much to the habits of the Hunter he was. Sam just hoped that a lot of those habits didn't come to apply to them in the very near future. He swept Dean with an appraising look as he approached, eyes landing first on the evidence of the pup he carried and next on the fresh mark at his throat; and Sam would have sworn if asked later that John's eyes were almost sympathetic when they saw that mark and then turned a moment later on Sam.

'Dad.' Dean stood for a moment at the table, hands kept low at his sides, but fingers still twitching constantly to try and curl into a fist.

'Son,' John replied with a tilt of his chin.

Sam nudged Dean into the booth first because he was going to keep himself as much between the two men as was possible in such a confined space whether Dean particularly agreed to it or not. Dean slid in and Sam followed. He slung an arm up over the back of the booth, stopped just short of dropping it on Dean's shoulders, but the intent and purpose was there nonetheless.

John acknowledged the silent statement with a single nod. 

'How much did he tell you?' John asked without preamble.

Sam was about to repeat his answer of last night when he  realized the question wasn't directed at him.

Dean's gaze was steady and calculating, just like John had taught him. 'Enough to get me to keep letting you do what you were doing.'

John nodded again. 'Not enough, then.'

He paused when the waitress came over to take their orders—coffees all around, give us a few minutes to decide on the special, Darlin'—and they were alone again.

'There's a lot of places I suppose I could start with this, but I guess the beginning is best,' John sighed. 'The most important thing you probably need to know first is that your mother was half human.'

Sam's jaw dropped, and he felt Dean lock up beside him. 'What?'

John pulled the salt shaker from the condiment holder and absently shook some of it onto the table, then started making patterns in it with his finger. 'One of her fathers was a human.'

'But that isn't—'

'Allowed? I know. He was hunted and killed shortly before her birth.'

'And she was allowed to live?' Dean asked skeptically.

'Had they known about her, probably not,' John admitted. 'Her other father gave birth to her in secret, raised her well away from other werewolves until she was of an age that she could have undergone her first Change.'

'No one could tell what she was?' Sam asked, astonished.

'Humans smell different, but she was still part werewolf. Unless someone took a specific interest, they probably wouldn't notice.'

'Did someone? Take a specific interest?' Dean asked.

John nodded again. 'Me.'

Sam frowned in confusion. 'What do you mean?'

'I figured out what she was, and I wasn't the only one. A price was put on her head and her father's. I took the job. I knew if anyone else found them, it wouldn't be pretty.'

'But you didn't kill her.'

'No,' John shook his head, lips curved in probably the saddest smile Sam had ever seen. 'By that time, I was already half in love with her. Even knowing what she was, I had to have her. Make her mine.' He sighed heavily and rubbed a hand across his mouth. 'Her father made me promise to watch out for her, then plugged himself with a silver bullet. I took her and ran. I used every trick I knew to cover our tracks, convince everyone that I'd killed them both, used the bounty money to set us up in a place none of our kind would ever look.'

The waitress came back with their coffees, took John's order of the special, Sam's for an egg white omelette, and Dean just shook his head in refusal of anything other than the cup in front of him. 

' 'M not hungry.'

Sam brushed the back of Dean's neck with his fingers and bent his head down a little. 'You should eat something...please?'

Dean just shook his head again. Sam let it go. The waitress smiled and left.

Dean's gaze zeroed in on John. 'Bobby said...'

'Yeah. He was the only other one who knew about your mom...because of the way you were born.'

'What?'

John let out a long, slow breath. 'Dean, you were born in your human form.'

'He what?' Sam asked, eyes wide. 

'Sam, do you remember your brother Changing? Once? Ever?'

Sam thought hard, sifted all the way back to his earliest memories, but none of them had anything other than Dean's freckled, smiling, very human face. It wasn't unheard of for werewolves to go most of their adult lives without ever Changing back into their wolf forms. It was the children with their boundless energy and high-strung emotional states that tended to bounce back and forth so frequently. The older a werewolf became the more energy it took and the painful was the transition. Sam could only remember one of two times he'd seen John as a wolf and those memories were hazy and somehow tinged in red; so, he really hadn't thought it at all strange that he had never seen Dean Change.

'N-No,' he stammered.

'He can't,' John said. 'Part of his human blood.'

'What about me?'

'Obviously, you had more of me in you,' John said with a wry smile. 'The point is, your mother's genes didn't allow her to carry a litter. That's why there was only one of you at a time.'

'I still don't understand what that has to do with Dean, with our pup. What did Bobby tell him that freaked him out so bad?' Sam interrupted. 

Dean had been watching John intently across the table, fingers fiddling with a couple of sugar packets, but he pushed them away now, turned one of his hands palm up on the table, clearly inviting Sam to take it. Sam frowned for a second and then laced his fingers with his brother's.

'He told me I'd probably die,' Dean said quietly, eyes still on John.

'What the hell!' Sam's fingers tightened convulsively and his gaze shot to John for confirmation, mind spinning back to their last encounter.

_God, I hope you don't live to regret this. Either of you._

John bowed his head, brought both of his hands up on the table and folded them, almost like he was praying. He spoke without looking up,

'We got lucky with Dean. He was born pretty much the way a human child would be born. Shorter gestation cycle, like a werewolf, but otherwise human. You, Sam…you, on the other hand, were entirely different.' He raised his eyes and they were piercing and hard and hurting. 'Your mother went into labor early. It was late. There was no one to help her. I was gone on a hunt. You…ripped through the amniotic sac while you were still inside her. You were suffocating, and you…' John stopped, pinched at the bridge of his nose to staunch the apparent flood of grief even after all these years. He swallowed thickly before continuing. 'You clawed your way out. She bled to death before anyone could get to her.'

For a moment, the only thing Sam could hear was the rush of blood in his ears. He felt his whole body go cold like someone had sucked all the heat out of the room in one breath. A hand was on the back of his neck, threading up into his hair, and then pressing his head down to the table to rest in the crook of his arm. 

'Sam, breathe. Just breathe, baby brother.' Sam could hear Dean's voice, slow and dim, like he had his head stuck underwater. He tried to do what Dean told him to because his body trusted his big brother, all of his instincts trusted his brother, always had. But every breath felt strangled, painful, like it was trying to push past something to get down into his lungs. 

'Fucking hell, Dad!' Dean was shouting now. 'Did you have to tell him that? Did he _ever_ need to know that!'

Sam finally figured out what was keeping the air from getting into his lungs. It was a sob. More like a collection of them really, and they broke loose the moment Dean bent over his neck, curving his body over and around his little brother's back, making himself a shield against the hurt, to hold the world at bay. 

Minutes ticked by. How many, Sam was completely incognizant of. He had a vague impression of the waitress scurrying over to see if he was all right and being politely brushed off by Dad and his never ending charm. The sobs shuddered out of him and air gradually leaked back in so that after a little while Dean was only holding him instead of trying to hold him together. 

'Sammy, don't you go thinkin' what I know you're thinkin'. Do you hear me?' Dean's lips were soft and warm against the shell of his ear. 'Don't you dare. It is _not_ your fault. It's _not_.'

Sam nodded his head, if only to pacify Dean for the moment, because there was no way around the truth of this. There just wasn't. He wiped his face against the sleeve of his shirt and raised his head just a little, brought his red-rimmed gaze to bear on John.

'You still haven't said…' He dragged in a shaky breath. 'What any of this means for Dean.'

John met his gaze and held it, one wounded animal to another. 'Your mother's human blood made her weak. Physically weaker than us, inside and out. What you did to your mother could never have happened if she were a full blood.'

'Dad!' Dean snapped at him.

'And Dean's not a full blood.' Sam ignored Dean's snarling at John.

'No. He's not.' John let go of Sam's gaze, went back to drawing in the pile of salt on the table top. 'I thought I could protect him with the medication, keep the other Alphas away. Even you. I could take care of the rest myself, keep his heats at bay without ever letting him get pregnant.'

'But you never gave two fucks about Sammy!' Dean burst out, hand clenching a little where it was still twined in Sam's hair. 'Why did you care so much about me and not about him?'

'He killed Mary!' John snapped and his eyes went briefly mad like Sam could imagine they might have right after it had happened, the way Dean had described last night. He dragged in a breath and lowered his voice. 'He killed your mother, and…he wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you.'

Sam looked over at Dean, eyes wide and still wet, and then to John who just shook his head. 

'Your brother begged for your life,' he said, his voice quiet, underlined with pain and anger and hate. 'He picked up your bloody, barely breathing body and ran out of the house with you. Took you all the way to Bobby's seven miles down the road, tucked inside his sweatshirt. You were barely alive when he got you there. Bobby called to tell me. I told him—' John pinched at the bridge of his nose again. 'I told him to let you die.'

'Shut up, Dad.' Dean's voice was deadly, the kind of deadly that all the badies they had ever encountered in their lives had the good sense to run from. If Dean had been packing, Sam was sure the gun would have been cocked and aimed at John from under the table. 'Just. Shut. Up.'

'When it became apparent Sam was an Alpha, like me, I didn't need to worry about him at all. He would never face what your mother did, never be susceptible to the weakness. The most he might do is be beaten down by another Alpha. But his status alone gives him enough power that most wouldn't ever question, even if they suspected he was anything but a full-blood.

'Your mother loved you, Dean. You were the single greatest light of her life. Because try as I might, I was never the husband, the Alpha, I should have been. As happy as I tried to make her, I was still the cause of her greatest grief. I made a promise to myself—to protect the thing she'd held most dear. At all costs.' John looked straight into his son's furious green gaze. 'You. And I've failed in that.'

'You don't know that,' Sam said urgently. 'You don't _know_. Dean's only one-quarter human. He could be strong enough. It may not happen like that. It was all chance anyway. If I hadn't been born early, things might have been fine!'

'Is that a chance you want to take with your brother's life!' John bit back. 'He _saved_ your life! And you'd sacrifice his because of your own selfish needs.'

Dean's fist dropped on the table with a bang like the scales of Fate unbalanced. 'He did not do it because he's selfish! He did it for me.'

'Really? If he'd been thinking of you at all, he'd have never touched you.'

'He didn't _know_ ,' Dean spat back.

'You did.' John said quietly and let the words lay out in the open. For half a minute, no one dared breathe. 'You knew enough, and you still let him put a pup in your belly…let him mate you…Bond you. And that…that, Dean, is unforgivable. You of all people know what happens, and yet you still let him do it.'

Dean went white as a sheet, lips pressed hard together and thinned out. Sam could see him swallowing convulsively, like he was trying to keep from being sick. Sam felt sick himself, drained and empty and so lost he wasn't sure what move to make next, but he couldn't leave Dean sitting there under John's hard, resentful gaze like that. 

'I knew what I was getting into,' Sam said as he pushed up and squared off his shoulders as much as he could manage. 'And I would rather go insane—I would rather _die_ —than lose one moment with him like this.'

Sam dug out his wallet, threw a twenty on the table, and stood up. He offered a hand out to Dean who surprised him by taking hold of it and letting Sam lever him out of the booth and hold him close for a second.

'You've told us what we need to know, Dad. Thank you for that,' Sam said, voice shockingly even and calm. 'But if I ever see you near either of us again, please believe that I won't hesitate to kill you if I feel myself or my family is threatened in anyway.'

He turned, guiding Dean in front of him, but John lurched from the booth, grabbed at his shoulder and swung him back around. 

'When he dies, alone and bloody, or worse,' he hissed. 'In your arms. If _it_ survives…you drown it. Let it die. Because it's the hate and the guilt you won't be able to live with, not the grief.'

It was the strangest and most backward apology, Sam had ever heard, but he did hear it. Through the all consuming pain that had long ago eaten away anything that may have been left of the man John Winchester was before death and grief had swamped his life, his youngest son could clearly hear the warning: _This is—I am—what you will become._  

Sam stared at him for a moment, taking in the visage of this man who was supposed to be their father, but suddenly seemed only a poor, sad, and pathetic stranger eaten by his own hatred and grief, and drowning in his own guilt. He was broken. He had always been broken. They had just never been able to see it clearly until now.

He felt a gentle tug on his sleeve and fingers lacing together with his. He turned away from John and hoped for all their sakes that he would never see the man again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little angst and quiet time, with some sweet sex on the side.   
> Dean opens up a little, and Sam breaks with tradition.

Neither of them were really in any condition to drive, but Sam had always been the one better at compartmentalizing even if his brother was the master of repression and denial.

So, Dean didn't argue when Sam opened the passenger door for him and kept a hand to his elbow as he sank down in the seat, or when Sam slid in behind the wheel and turned the Impala out of town and back toward the farm and the gatehouse. In fact, Dean said nothing until they reached the turnoff that wound back along the front edge of the farmer's property and ended behind the little whitewashed building they were trying to teach themselves to call home.

'Keep drivin', Sam,' Dean said quietly from the passenger seat. 

His head was still turned to look out the window. Sam hadn't gotten a good look at his face since they'd left the diner. He'd been listening pretty carefully, though, for the slightest sound, anything that would give him a clue to his brother's feelings right now, because for all the strength in their newfound connection, Sam wasn't able to read anything but a dark, flat void.

'Where to?' Sam asked just as quietly.

'Anywhere.'

Sam let the turnoff go by and kept driving down the potholed asphalt road until it ran out and turned to dirt and gravel, then passed through a busted and broken down split-rail and stone fence that might have once skirted the entirety of this moderately sized field in front of them that was now overgrown with wild grass and surrounded by thickets of brush and trees. He nudged the Impala forward until her tires were running on soft, long grass that, when it whipped at her undercarriage, made Dean flinch the tiniest bit. He stopped then. Put it in park. Turned off the engine. 

The sun had risen up overhead, sliding steadily into late morning, but the height and density of the surrounding trees blocked a lot of it out, so that Sam felt like he might be caught in a pocket of time standing still. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and held them in his hand for a minute, sliding each one around the ring and back again.

'You knew,' he finally whispered into the quiet.

Dean could have asked what it was he knew. It wasn't like there weren't a lot of loose ends laying around between them right now—things that John had said, things that Dean had never bothered to say; but he knew instinctively what Sam was asking him right now.

'I thought I was dreaming,' he said to the ghost of his reflection in the glass. 'I thought I was having a nightmare. I remember crying because Mom hadn't come like she always did when I had a bad dream, and then I remember hearing her scream.'

Dean turned to the front, brought a hand up over his eyes and pressed his thumb and fingers against his temples, to restrain the tears maybe, or block out the memory. Sam stayed quiet beside him.

'She only screamed once—that I can remember—maybe when you—' He stopped, licked his lips, shuddered once. 'I couldn't make myself move for a long time, but I finally went to the door, got down the stairs. Mom and Dad's bedroom was in the back corner of the house, just off the side of the fire place in the main room.'

Dean's lips quirked cruelly, as if he were berating himself for remembering such an inconsequential detail.

'She never called out. Not once. I stood in her door for a long time. I couldn't see anything. It was dark. It smelled funny. I remember that. Probably all the blood—I just didn't know it at the time. I think I thought she was asleep, until she turned her head…'

Dean brought his other hand up to his face and covered it for a moment, breathing deep past a rising sob. Sam's fingers itched to reach out, to comfort, but something told him not to touch this pain. This was something that was Dean's alone, and he wanted to retain full ownership of it.

'"Sammy," she said. I remember being confused by that. They hadn't picked a name for you yet, and I thought maybe she wasn't actually awake, but…she beckoned me over. "You take care of your Sammy," she said.' Dean stumbled, stuttered over the sob he was still pressing back against. 'S-She had you wrapped up in one of the pillowcases. Pushed you into my arms. Think she already knew it was too late.

'I don't know what made me run. I don't have any idea how I got to Bobby's, or why I went there.' He slid a glance across to the keys where Sam still played with them in his hands, watched the turn and glint of them in the light. 'Bobby took you, cleaned you, wrapped you up warm and gave you back to me and told me to go in and sit by the fire and not move, not a single muscle, until he came back for me.' 

'You saved me.' Sam's hands stilled in his lap.

Dean shrugged a little. 'Maybe.'

'You heard Dad. What he said he told Bobby.'

'Yeah.'

They sat in silence for while, still not looking at each other.

'Dean, it's my fault she died, and it's going to be my fault again if…' Sam drifted off, unable to even finish thinking the thought, much less speak it. 

Dean pressed a palm to the top curve of his rounded belly and stroked down, once, then sat looking down at himself. 'I'm sorry, Sam.'

'What?' Sam turned in the seat, keys slipping from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

'I put this on you.' Dean squeezed his eyes shut tight. 'I put this on you, and I knew better. I did. I'm sorry. Just…I'm sorry.'

'You didn't know about Mom any more than I did,' Sam protested.

'But I knew enough,' Dean hissed, eyes still closed. 'Like Dad said. Bobby warned me years go, "You let your Daddy do what he needs to. It's your life he's lookin' to save," he said. It's all I needed to know.' He hunched over suddenly and wrapped his arms around the low swell of his belly, the long held, broken sob finally juttering out of him. 'But, _Christ_ , I-I wanted this! I fucking _wanted_ it, Sam. And when it was you that offered—I just couldn't—I thought maybe it was just because Dad was so angry at you, that he never wanted you or anyone else to have me, that I could just ignore the warnings, that somehow it would all work out—'

Sam slid across the space in one smooth motion and took his brother in his arms. 'And it's going to, Dean. I swear it will. If I have to stay by your side every second of every day until our pup is born, then that's exactly what I'll do. I said I wanted to take care of you Dean, and I meant it. No matter what, I will not let anything happen to you. Either of you.'

He slipped a hand down to press it warm and close on Dean's belly. 

'You're strong, Dean, the strongest person I've ever known, and I refuse to believe that there is no hope, that things have to go the way Dad says just because that's how it happened in the past. I believe in you. I believe in us and our family.' He pressed gently against the firm swell under his hand and stroked it with his thumb. 'You had every right to want this. I wanted it for you. And together, we're going to have it. I promise.'

——

Sam could have happily stayed in that grassy clearing for the rest of his life with Dean tucked up against his side, because leaving it meant letting the world and everything he'd learned over the past few hours really penetrate his brain so that he had to start thinking about it and analyzing it and determining how to act on it. But even before he had to deal with that, there were more mundane but pressing things to take care of—getting something more than three swallows of black coffee in his brother's stomach for one.

He stopped at a roadside farmer's stand not far from the turnoff to their little gatehouse and came back to the car after ten minutes with a loaf of fresh baked bread, a sack of apples and tomatoes, and a small round of cheese sealed in wax.

'You and your rabbit food,' Dean muttered when he saw the contents, but there was the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Sam took them back to the gatehouse, installed Dean at the table with a cup of instant coffee to pacify him and went to work on tomato and cheese sandwiches with apple slices on the side. Dean made a face at his plate when it appeared in front of him, but went to work on the sandwich anyway.

'Take it slow,' Sam cautioned. 'And don't eat anymore than you want.'

Dean gave him a warning look across the table. 'Dude…'

Sam ignored the look and went to work on his own plate. 'Just trying to help.'

'Probably just going to come back up anyway.' Dean shrugged. 'No matter how slow I eat it.'

Sam scowled a little. 'You think maybe that's part of it? You being so sick?'

'Who knows?'

Sam sat back and looked at Dean for a long moment. ' _Does_ anyone?'

'Does anyone what?'

'Does anyone know anything about it? Besides Dad, I mean.'

Dean set his sandwich down, leaned back a little, and looked like he was contemplating something. 

'Bobby might,' he finally said, a little reluctantly.

Sam's heart gave a bit of a jump. 'You think?'

Dean raised a hand, palm out. 'Sammy, don't get your hopes up. It's not like he could fix anything. He _might_ be able to explain some of it a little, but that's it, and I don't really know what good that would do us at this point.'

'Dean, any information we can get is a good thing.' Sam leaned forward a little, anxious excitement starting to trickle into his blood because his mind was a sponge and it was logical and it worked on information. The more he had the better. 'Maybe he knows something that could help us.'

Dean gave him a long measured look. 'And maybe he knows that there isn't any other way this can end.'

Sam sat back again, face gone slack. 'Don't say that, Dean. Please.'

Dean shook his head. 'Look…I don't like it, either. I don't want to think about it, but we have to face the facts. You have to be prepared.'

'For what?' Sam burst out. 'For you to die? I told you I'm not letting it happen!'

'And you may not get the choice!'

Sam was stricken. 'Dean, you just said…in the car…'

Dean pushed his plate away and pressed two fingers to his temple. 'I know what I said. I know what I want—how I want this to end. But what we want may not make a snowflake's difference in Hell, Sam! You have to accept that—fuck.'

Dean shoved back from the table and the bathroom door slammed behind him two seconds later. Sam let him go. He shoved his hands up into his hair and dropped his elbows to rest on the table. After a second or two, he reached and pushed his plate away as well. 

This wasn't going to go away—this foreboding thing that was in the room with them. He almost hated himself, now, for calling John. At least if he hadn't, they could have enjoyed the bliss of ignorance. For a while anyway. He knew, too, that it was only going to be a matter of time before his own issues with how his mother had died and the part he played in that came boiling to the surface. It would fall on Dean to clean it up, to patch him back together, and Sam didn't want that right now. He needed Dean to be able to focus all his energy on himself and their pup, because no matter what Dad or Dean said, Sam was not in any way willing to just accept  their fate. 

The bathroom door opened a few minutes later, and Dean came back to the table, but he didn't sit down. He came to stand beside Sam, put a hand on his shoulder. 

'You okay?'

Sam huffed a laugh. 'I should be asking you that.'

Dean sifted his hand up into Sam's hair, and repeated softly. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah,' Sam sighed and looked up at him. 'Yeah, I just…'

'Sammy…'

Sam closed his eyes for a second, then dropped his cheek to rest against Dean's belly, looped his arms around his waist. Dean went still for a fraction of a second, but then pulled Sam closer, tightened his hand in his hair and rubbed between his shoulder blades with the other.

'No. No, I'm not okay. I don't guess I could be, but…I'm okay for _now_. I know it's going to rear its ugly head. I just don't—don't want to do it right now.' He sighed and pressed his cheek a little closer, rolled his head enough to place a soft kiss to the side of Dean's navel. 'Okay?'

'Your call, Sam.'

Sam nodded, cheek rubbing against the soft cotton of Dean's t-shirt. He turned his head again and pressed another kiss to the gentle swell. He felt the tiny tremor that moved through Dean's whole body and let his hands drift down from the small of his brother's back to grasp gently at the backs of his thighs and kneaded there for a minute. He worked his fingers around between Dean's thighs, felt the growing warmth there, caught the scent on the air. His body shuddered in response. 

Slowly, he brought his hands around and caught at the hem of Dean's t-shirt, lifted it, inch by slow inch, to let the soft fabric graze against the taught, stretched skin beneath and raise a pattern of goosebumps there. Sam breathed warm and light across them until the skin was smooth and relaxed again.

'Sam…'

Sam looked up, saw the wary glint in Dean's green eyes, felt his discomfort almost like it was his own. He pressed his lips to the swell of his brother's bare belly again while he kept his gaze trained on Dean's, steady and sure. 

'Let me, Dean. Please. Let me show you how beautiful you are to me.'

Dean trembled harder, and Sam was afraid his knees would give out in a second. So he stood, walked them over to the bed, urged Dean to sit down, and then sank to his knees between his brother's splayed legs.

Sam put his hands on Dean's belly, smoothed his palms over the curve of it to either side, pushed his t-shirt all the way up to his ribs so that he could see the whole expanse of tight, pale skin beneath. He rubbed his thumbs in ever broadening circles and cupped the weight of the swell in his palms, holding it and marveling at the idea that in a few short weeks he could be holding the life inside for real, out here, in his arms, where he could  cuddle and kiss and make promises to protect it forever. He bent forward and pressed another kiss to the top of the curve and felt Dean shiver again.

'Girl or boy?' he asked suddenly.

'W-What?' Dean sounded a little breathless.

'Girl or boy?' Sam repeated. 'What would you like it to be?'

'Not like we have a choice.'

'No, but I'd still like to know what you're hoping for,' Sam whispered as he breathed another warm gust of air across Dean's bare skin.

'Girl,' Dean breathed out softly.

Sam quirked an eyebrow a little in surprise but smiled against the swell between his palms. 'Girl it is,' he said. 'I'd like that. She'll be beautiful. Green eyes just like yours…my dark hair—'

'Mom's smile,' Dean whispered.

A lump pushed up into Sam's throat that he couldn't get any words past for a moment or two, so he just pressed more kisses to his brother's belly. 

'Yeah…Mom's smile.' Sam braved a look up into Dean's eyes and found them full of unshed tears, but smiling. Sam smiled back, softly. 'You are the most beautiful thing, and she will be, too.'

'Sam…I want to…' 

'I know,' Sam said, and let one of his hands drift down to the hard swell in Dean's jeans. It twitched against his palm. 'I want to, too.'

He pushed off his knees, caught Dean under the arms and helped him lift himself back up the bed, then stretched out beside him, keeping one hand wandering over his belly. He leaned over him, looked directly in his eyes.

'Dean, I want to feel you,' Sam said. 'Inside me.'

Dean's eyes shot wide. 'What?'

Sam's hand went back down to the thick bulge pressing hard against the back of Dean's zipper. He palmed it, squeezed gently until he got a low moan out of his brother.

'I want you inside me.'

'I-I can't,' Dean said, shaking his head a little. 

It wasn't done. That wasn't how things worked. Omega's never rode their Alpha's. No Alpha would ever allow it.

'You can,' Sam whispered. 'There's no rules. Just what's always been done. And I'm in the mood for breaking rules, for doing things that aren't done.' He cupped the lower curve of Dean's belly firmly for a second. 'I want to change how things are…how they're going to be.'

Dean clapped his hand over Sam's, pressed hard, and then shoved it down to feel the incredible fullness that was jerking painfully, begging to be released from the stiff confines of his jeans. Sam moaned and dipped his mouth to Dean's ear to nip lightly and suck at the tender lobe.

'That's it. Get hard for me. 'Cause I wanna feel that deep, so deep, inside me.'

Dean shuddered hard, reached up and grabbed Sam's shoulders and rolled them over so that he was the one leaning up and over his brother's long, strong, beautiful body. Without any preamble, he sat back to strip off his clothes. Sam followed suit, too hard and eager to try and drag this out now that he'd started it. Shirts, jeans, socks, boots—they all went flying until Dean was sitting up on his knees, completely naked, belly round and beautiful in front of him, cock jutting out from below, weeping gorgeous pearly drops just for Sam.

He walked forward a few inches, urged Sam's thighs apart, and then sat back on his haunches between them. His own thighs were slightly spread, and Sam nearly choked with wanting when he reached a hand down to push his fingers up inside himself and get them all wet with his own slick before he slid those same fingers between Sam's cheeks and brushed across the tightly furled muscle there that had never once been breached. 

It wasn't lost on Dean that he was dealing with a situation that basically made Sam a virgin, so he was gentle in his coaxing, continuously going back to wet his fingers, to ease the slide up into Sam's incredibly tight heat. Sam, for his part, had to keep one hand squeezed constantly around the base of his cock, because between watching Dean work himself to get his fingers all slicked up and then feeling those fingers press and push and then—oh holy fucking GOD—slide up inside him, he could barely keep from coming.

Sam arched hard, hand tightening on his cock, a guttural growl ripping up from his chest.

'Good?' Dean asked.

Sam couldn't answer, just twisted his body a little to bring Dean's fingers in deeper.

Dean wasn't shy like Sam thought his might be. Once Sam had given him permission, he took over with a kind of mastery and gentleness that surprised him.

'You've done this before,' Sam finally managed to gasp out as Dean tested the stretch of his hole with a second finger.

'Sorry, little brother,' Dean smiled a little devilishly. 'You're not my first one. We Omegas have to stick together sometimes.'

'Knew that,' Sam gasped. 'Just thought—'

Dean curled his finger just so and Sam's back bowed beautifully as he let out a shocked little shout.

'Girls?' Dean asked and curled his finger again, eliciting the same reaction. 'No, I prefer the boys.'

'Obviously,' Sam huffed. He grabbed at his inner thighs, pulling them apart, trying on instinct to spread himself wider for Dean.

'Want more?' Dean asked.

'Jesus, yes!' Sam gasped and then whimpered when Dean pulled all the way out, but he wasn't left wanting for long.

Dean grasped Sam's hips and hauled him up on top of his thighs so he didn't have to manage the growing weight of his belly while he tried to fuck his brother into oblivion. His swollen, mushroomed head bumped against Sam's hole and Sam jolted hard.

Dean flattened a palm on Sam's quivering belly, stroked him. 'Shhh. I'm gonna go slow. It's okay.'

Sam shuddered and nodded and tried to force his body to relax, let his weight down on the tops of Dean's thighs while Dean slicked up his cock good and wet and let it just push against Sam's ass in little gentle urgings   until Sam was panting again and trying to get some kind of leverage to bring Dean closer, bring him inside.

'You ready?' Dean asked huskily.

Sam nodded, one hand still on his aching, over-full and over-excited cock, the other gripping the meat of his inner thigh, still spreading himself wide open for his brother.

Dean lined up and pushed, slow and steady, and Sam groaned loud and long as his ass stretched and stretched, taking Dean in one slow fraction at a time until the head of his cock slid wholly inside him and Dean stopped to let him adjust to the feeling of being opened up and filled.

'Still good?' Dean asked, honest concern in his voice, even though it was rough with tightly restrained desire.

'M-More,' Sam managed. 'Go deeper.'

Dean let out a little moan of his own and pushed again, slow and steady. Sam started to tense up and Dean stroked at his belly again, whispered to him, petted his inner thighs to soothe and relax him.

'Jesus, Dean, I don't think I can—' Sam had a death grip on his own cock. It was twitching constantly now, overwhelmed by these sensations of fullness that he had never before experienced, and dribbling a steady flow of pre-cum onto his fingers.

'Don't try,' Dean said. 'Just let it happen. 'Cause I'm not gonna last either. Guaranteed. I'm so close to coming, Sam…right now, just from the feel of you all tight and hot around me. Holy fuck…'

Dean's hips punched forward a little in desperation, demanding more than the slow steady push that he was allowing, but he reigned himself in, slowed his movements back to just an easy slide until he was nearly fully sheathed in his brother's heat.

'Gonna fill you up to the brim, Sammy. Just like you do for me. Let you feel that stretch. Know what it's like to be so fucking full you can barely hold anymore, and then I'm gonna come inside you, let you fell that heat deep in your belly.'

Sam arched, cried out, and came in a huge gush of cum that geysered, hot and white and beautiful, all across his belly and hand; and in the same moment, Dean hunched forward, groaning deep and hard as he emptied himself inside his brother, coming in long, throbbing pulses that left him momentarily blind and deaf to the world around him.

Sam caught Dean's shoulders as he curled forward and very gently eased him onto his side on the bed.

'You okay?'

Dean swallowed, nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah, you?'

Sam shifted fully onto his side, legs still tangled with Dean's. 'Yeah.' He smiled broadly. 'How come you Omegas are allowed the patent on that particular move?'

Dean laughed. 'I don't know. Just always been that way.'

Sam shook his head, expression going serious. 'Well, we're changing that here and now.'

Dean stared back into Sam's intent gaze, and then nodded slowly. He reached for one of his brother's broad hands and pressed it together with his own to the side of his belly. 

'Yeah. We are.'


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get some help.

Time slowed down in some ways for Sam over the next few weeks. 

Dean relaxed more, let Sam touch him more. It was like that one afternoon that Sam let his brother own him opened all kinds of previously closed doors into the softer parts of Dean's heart and soul. It wasn't a one time thing either. Sam let Dean take him on a regular basis, and it was an exhilarating feeling to not be in control for once, to just give himself over to anything his brother wanted from him.

They stayed close to the farm most days. Sam got to know their landlord Jim a little better and started helping around the place with little odds and ends. When Dean got cabin fever, they would tool around the local area taking in some of the historical sites that Sam was ceaselessly attracted to and the endless supply of outstanding foodstuffs that tickled Dean's fancy.

Trouble was, no matter how much Dean enjoyed the food, it wasn't sticking with him.

He was getting sicker and sicker as the weeks went by, and while he'd been able to at least stay at a constant weight in the beginning of his pregnancy, he'd started loosing pounds over the last couple of weeks, and that was enough to make Sam start to seriously worry. Dean's belly was still growing, but now instead of a full, healthy swell, it looked small and hard under his thinning skin.

'Dean,' Sam started to say one morning as he handed over a fresh cup of peppermint tea to his brother who was sitting in the the old rocker Sam had found and reclaimed from the attic in the barn last week. He had his feet up on the wide windowsill and was staring out at the haze of early morning fog hanging on the distant hills, his hand absently stroking over the swell of his belly.

'Dean, I want to call Bobby.'

Dean sipped at the tea, made a face, and took a bigger swallow anyway. Sam had broken him of his coffee, at least temporarily, siting that the acid in it probably wasn't helping him keep any food down, and the peppermint, and sometimes ginger, did help a little. There were some days he actually got to keep a whole meal down. 

'I haven't talked to him in a few years, Sam. Not even sure where he is now.'

'That's why I want to call first.'

'First?'

Sam leaned against the wide sill and rubbed his hands across the tops of his thighs. 'Before I take you up there.'

Dean turned to frown at him. 'What're you talking about, Sam?'

Sam licked his lips. 'Dean, we're only a couple of weeks, maybe less, away from you giving birth. We don't have any idea what to expect—'

'It all happens pretty naturally from what I've heard,' Dean drawled with a slightly condescending smile.

Sam pulled a face. 'You know that's not what I meant.'

Dean's smile evaporated, and he turned away again. 'I know.'

'I just don't want you alone, for even a second. And if I had to suddenly leave for any reason, or if you needed anything…' Sam shoved a hand through his hair. 'If I have someone to help me look after you, and even better, someone who has at least _seen_ this happen before—'

'It doesn't take experience to watch someone die, Sammy.'

The admission was so soft, Sam almost didn't catch it, but when his brain finally translated the sounds, he was furious enough that he wanted to reach out and shake his damn brother until he rattled the idea of his own demise straight out of his head. Instead he just stood up, shoulders stiff, face a closed mask, and held out his hand.

'Give me your damn phone.'

Dean looked up at him for a second, debating the intelligence, or benefit, of trying to retract the statement, then reached into his pocket and handed his phone over. 

'Singer Salvage and Repair,' he said to Sam's retreating back just before the door slammed.

Sam thumped down the stairs, slammed the door behind him before he took off in long strides across the lawn and was half way up their drive before he realized he was crying hot, angry tears. He stopped by a fence post, smeared away the tears against the shoulder of his t-shirt, put his foot up on a rail, and opened Dean's contact list. 

Singer Salvage and Repair had a South Dakota area code, and as he thumbed the number and listened to the first few rings, Sam was already calculating the best and fastest route to get there.

'Singer Salvage. If I don't got it, it wasn't made to begin with,' a gruff, burly voice came over the line.

Sam held his breath for a couple of heartbeats and then, 'Bobby?'

'Who the hell is this?'

'Sam…Sam Winchester.'

There was a long, long silence, and Sam almost thought maybe the man had hung up on him. 

'Well…as I live and breathe. Never thought I'd ever hear your voice, boy.'

Another long pause.

'Sam? You all right, son? Is your brother there?'

'Yeah. I mean, no—I mean, not _right_ here, no, just…' Sam ran out of air and dropped his head down on his arm to rest on the fence post.

'Slow down, son. Let's start from the top,' Bobby said, voice gone surprisingly gentle and soft from what had originally answered the phone. 'Everybody alive?'

'Yessir.' Sam instinctively offered the 'sir' because he could hear the blatant concern even through the phone line, even though he'd never met this man once in his life. At least not that he could remember.

'Good. Your dad with you?'

'No, sir.'

'Didn't figure.' This almost to himself, and Sam wondered for half a heartbeat what would make the man say that. 'Your brother is, though, and you're both all right.'

'We're together,' Sam said. 'Dean is…' 

Sam hesitated. He didn't _know_ this man. He could only trust him because Dean said so, and he hadn't really even said that, but… And, well, he supposed if what John had said were true, then Sam owed Bobby Singer his life just as much as he owed his brother.

'Dean's pregnant,' he said.

Sam heard a harsh curse and what sounded like the scrape of a hand over the bristle of a short beard.

'All right…I'm guessin' John did _not_ have anything to do with _that_.'

'No. I did.'

A low whistle sounded. 'Okay. Didn't really expect that one either, but okay… Sam? You have any idea what's goin' on? John or Dean tell you anything? I'm thinkin' they must've, else you wouldn't be callin' me like this.'

'John—Dad—told us about Mom.'

'But all this with Dean…happened before that, I'm guessin'?' Bobby said.

'Yes, it did.'

There was another long pause that Sam didn't know how to fill. He didn't know how much he could ask of this man who seemed to be their friend.

'What is it you need, son?' Bobby asked gently.

'I don't—don't want to impose, sir,' Sam said.

'First, quit with the "sir", boy. That's for suits and the like who spin their lives in lies. Second, I've known your family since before Dean was born. Helped your Dad set him and your Mom up safe and sound after…the incident with her daddy. So, anything you need, Sam, you just say.'

Sam was too shocked to speak at first. It was the kind of open ended offer that a loving parent would give their child, only Sam had no experience with that kind of parent, so it took him a few swallows to bring the words out,

'I want to bring Dean up there. I need your help keeping watch over him until the pup comes. I don't want him alone. Not for a second. If what happened to our mom were to happen to him, and someone were there…' he drifted off and waited with a tensely held breath to hear the reassurance he so needed.

'Son,' Bobby said, very softly. 'I'm not sure if your Mom would have lived even if someone had been with her.'

Sam didn't realize there was a sob sitting under his ribs waiting to ambush him, to just rip out of him in one ugly, desperate sound, but it was there nonetheless and had him gasping and on his knees like a man sentenced to death and awaiting the executioners ax. 

He must have sat there and cried for a good long time because Bobby's voice was a little frantic when Sam was finally to a point he could hear it again.

'Sam? Sam! Don't you give up, son. I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said that. You just…you just bring yourself and Dean up here. I'll make a place for you. You and me, we'll keep an eye on him. Keep watch. Okay?' Bobby paused, let Sam soak in his words. 'We'll do everything we can to make sure things turn out different, all right?'

Sam nodded, finally remembered Bobby couldn't see that, and managed a broken whisper. 'That's all I want, Bobby. Just a chance. Just a hope that he can live.'

'You got it, son,' Bobby said, voice stronger now, more take charge. 'Now, how long until he's ready to pop?'

'Only another couple of weeks.'

'Then you get yourself on the road just as soon as you can. Tomorrow morning at the latest…'

Bobby proceeded to line out the most direct route for Sam from where they were, told him the best places to stop along the way, and told him to check in with him at least once a day while they were on the road.

By the time Sam hung up, he felt like at least a little of the weight he'd been carrying the last weeks was now off his shoulders. He had some help. Even if Bobby really didn't have anymore information than what John had already given them, at least they weren't alone. They had a place to go. Someone who wanted them.

——

It took a little to sell Dean on the idea of going up to Bobby's. Sam was not unaware that Dean had been spending more and more time in their loft, reluctant to leave it for even the promise of a great burger, and that meant he had started nesting. Taking him out of the space that he'd deemed 'safe' to bring their pup into the world was going to be rough on him, and he was going to have to start all over new some place else. Sam regretted it, but if it meant having the help he had a feeling was waiting for them in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then he was more than willing to strip the bed of the quilt Dean had become attached to, break the rocker down in enough pieces they could fit into the trunk of the Impala, and stuff the backseat with all the pillows that they had been slowly acquiring.

It was going to take two days on the road, probably three, maybe even four, depending on how long Dean could stand to be in the car at a time. He wasn't riding well anymore. The pressure in his hips, another indication that an impending birth was not far off, was making it hard for him to sit for long periods of time, and the never ending bouts of vomiting just made him miserable in general. Being in a car for hours on end with all that made it even worse. 

Sam packed them up the day he talked to Bobby and got them on the road the next morning early and made it as far as Toledo, Ohio the first night. The second day, Dean didn't do so well. He started out in the front seat again with Sam, but ended up stretched out in the back, trying to sleep in between bouts of throwing up, and when he'd complained of a cramp low in his belly, Sam had called a halt just outside Rockford, IL. Sam didn't sleep that night, keeping himself glued up against Dean's back and his hand spread wide against his belly while Dean slept fitfully, moaning a little in his sleep now and again. 

Sam pushed through to Sioux Falls the next day, keeping himself wired on caffeine, Dean's stomach under relative control with a constant flow of ginger candy and peppermint tea, and stops every hour on the hour so that Dean could get out and stretch and walk a little which seemed to keep the cramps at bay. By the time Sam pulled through the huge wrought iron gate of Singer Salvage and Repair close to eight o'clock that night, his eyelids felt like sandpaper scraping over his eyeballs, his heart was pounding in his chest from all the coffee and soda he'd been feeding himself, and he was never more glad to see a place to lay his head than he was the old, rung down victorian-esque monstrosity that Bobby apparently called home.

The man himself was waiting on the front porch, feet propped up on the railing, leaning back in an old straight-back chair. There were a couple of big dogs laying at his feet that looked to be at least part Pit Bull, whose attention was pricked by the newcomers, but a low command from their owner set them at heel. Sam unfolded himself from behind the wheel, joints popping and cracking, muscles protesting against nearly every move. He made his way around the car and opened Dean's door to help lever him up from the seat.

Dean stayed on the other side of the Impala for a minute or two, all the nervousness that he hadn't shown with John weeks back, now apparent in the stiff line of his shoulders under his flannel shirt. He raised a hand in greeting.

'Bobby.'

Bobby got up, slow and easy, giving off all the signals of a man who looked perfectly content to watch the world pass him by but had the strength, agility, and battle-hardened know-how to stop it dead in its tracks if that was what needed doing. He came down the steps and stopped, sensing, even if he couldn't see clearly in the dying light, that Dean needed his own time and space to come to him.

Sam waited, too. He was too tired and too strung out to try and push either Dean or himself any further. It felt like the minute he'd pulled through the front gate, some pressure valve had been released, and Sam was on the knife's edge of losing it. All the built up tension and emotion just simmering under the surface and seconds from boiling over.

Dean made his slow way around the Impala, and when he finally got himself in full view of Bobby, the only thing the man did was step forward to fold him into a bear hug. Sam very nearly came apart right there, because he knew that no matter how much Dean loved him, or he loved Dean, there were certain things that they just couldn't give each other. This unbiased, validating love from a father-figure being one of them. Dean ducked his head down into Bobby's shoulder for just a second, hugging the man back fiercely, before he pulled away enough to reach out an arm for Sam who had stayed a step behind his shoulder.

'Bobby, this is Sam.'

Bobby swept his gaze over Sam once, and then pulled him in for an equally fierce hug. He took a step back and looked him up and down again with wide, wondering eyes. He whistled low.

'Who'da thunk you'd grow up like this?' he marveled. 'The way you started out? Tiny runt of a thing just barely able to open your eyes?' He scrubbed a hand over his beard and smiled. 'You grew up mighty fine, son. Mighty fine. And it's real nice to finally get to meet you proper.'

Sam blushed hard and felt his eyes get all hot and start to tear up. Bobby must have noticed because he turned and ushered them inside, giving Sam a chance to compose himself.

'Made you boys a place downstairs,' Bobby said as he led them down a back staircase to an unfinished but fully stocked basement with everything from canned goods, bottled water, and other survival supplies, to various weapons and accoutrements of the Hunter trade. 'It's a little tight, and there's rooms upstairs if you'd prefer, but I thought what with—' he gestured to Dean, '—the little one on the way, you'd want something safe and close.'

He swung open a heavy, reinforced iron door, that was more like a hatchway, and ducked inside a large, round room that looked to be completely self contained and sealed with the exception of vents in the ceiling that Sam suspected could be sealed as well or shifted to an independent ventilation system.

'Haven't used this room since I had to lock your Daddy in a time or two during those first few months,' Bobby said quietly. 'Made a few updates and changes for comfort…Bathroom's through the door over there. 'S got everything you need, just pretty compact. Brought in a nice mattress, 'stead of that old cot. Thought you might appreciate that.'

Dean nodded, looking around the room like he almost couldn't believe his eyes. Sam could tell he was overwhelmed, and tired, and probably hurting. Throw sick on top of that, he thought, when Dean raised his hand to his mouth for the third time in as many minutes and swallowed almost audibly. Sam stepped in close, reached for his elbow, and bent his head down.

'All right?'

Dean gave the tiniest shake of his head.

Bobby was a shrewd and observant man, Sam discovered, and clever, too. He caught Dean's minute gesture and immediately moved for the door.

'Made some soup for supper if you boys are hungry. Why don't you settle in a bit. Sam, I'll help you unload the car whenever you're ready.'

And then he was gone, up the stairs, leaving Sam standing in the middle of the big ironclad room holding Dean by the elbows while he leaned his forehead into the hollow of Sam's throat and tried to breathe through the nausea. 

'Dean, why don't you lay down?' Sam said. 'I'll bring in our stuff, get the rocker set up for you, wherever you want it. If you feel like eating a little later, fine. If not, just crash. We'll deal with everything else in the morning.'

Dean nodded and let Sam undress him down to his t-shirt and boxers and help lower him onto the comfortable mattress made up in soft cotton sheets and light but warm, soft blankets. Sam sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, just stroking over Dean's hair, scratching lightly against his scalp.

'Feel like you're going to be sick?' he asked.

'Little,' Dean mumbled.

A short search found a steel trashcan under a small desk and Sam set it right by the bed. 'Just in case, huh?'

'Thanks.'

'What me to stay?' he asked.

Dean shook his head against the pillow. ' 'S okay. You go. Get something to eat. You're wired on too much caffeine and not enough food. You'd probably be sick yourself if you could stop long enough to feel it. I'll be fine. Just need to sleep a little.'

Sam's eyes throbbed with unshed tears again at the thought that Dean would still be worrying about his well-being even when he felt as shitty as he did himself. He leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to Dean's temple, stayed there for a long moment, just breathing in his brother's warm scent.

'Love you, Dean.'

'L've you, too,' Dean mumbled back, and Sam could tell that he was already, blessedly, three-quarters asleep.

Sam got up and shed his over-shirt, dropped it on the back of a chair, pulled the door partially to after himself, but not enough that he couldn't hear Dean, hopefully, if he needed him, and made his way upstairs.

He found Bobby in what passed as a den but was more a library with ancient books covering every square inch of wall space and then some. He'd noticed the neat pile of their things from the car by the door, and when he stepped across the threshold to the library, a set of keys came sailing across to him. He caught them one-handed.

'Locked her up for the night. We can move her to one of the garages in the morning if you want. I left the rocker in the back 'till you felt like puttin' it together,' Bobby said. 'You can put it anywhere you like that you can find free floor space.'

'Thanks,' Sam said and dropped onto the sunken cushions of an old couch that ran the length of a long front window painted over with carefully drawn out sigils. The man definitely took his Hunting seriously, then.

'I don't do much anymore 'cept provide backup and information for the ones out in the field,' Bobby said when he saw Sam eyeing the symbols. 'How's he doing?'

Sam spun the keys on his finger, flicked at one of them, and then clenched them in his hands and bowed his head, exhausted. 'He's fine, I guess. Tired from the drive. Hurting, but I guess that's to be expected a little. Sick. He's always sick now. Can't keep anything down. He's been loosing so much weight recently…'

'Your Mom was like that with the both of you,' Bobby said quietly.

A glass suddenly appeared in front of Sam.

'Whisky. Not medicine, but it can still cure a whole lot. At least in the short term,' Bobby offered.

Sam nodded his thanks, took a tentative sip and then a good swallow, and enjoyed the warm, smooth spread of heat it made behind his ribs. 

'Do you—do you know anything about this?'

'Probably not much more than what your Dad already told you.' Bobby sighed. 'How much, exactly, did he tell you?'

'That I-I clawed my way out of my mom…that I'm the reason she's dead.'

'Sonofabitch!' Bobby swore, rocking forward in his chair. 'That bastard. He didn't need to tell you that.'

' 'S okay. I knew. I always knew.'

'But he didn't need to rub your nose in it,' Bobby insisted. 'You okay?'

'Yeah. I think. I mean, no, not really, I suppose. I killed my mom for Chrissake! But I can't do anything about it, now. I can't change the past. I can only…only try and save Dean.'

Sam took another swallow of the whiskey, watched the light refract in the amber liquid, blurred by the tears still pushing at the backs of his eyes.

Bobby nodded. 'You Bonded with him, didn't you.'

It wasn't a question. Sam was already growing more and more certain that there was very little this man missed, no matter how laid back and hillbilly he might act. He just nodded.

'God, son, you don't do it but you do it good, do you?' he almost laughed. ' 'S gonna hurt, you know. If this whole thing goes sideways on us? That's what did your Daddy in.'

Sam nodded again. 'I know. We both know.'

'Well, now that's all out of the way, I suppose now we just need to decide what to do next,' Bobby said, kicking his feet up on his desk. 'I got a friend in town, works at the clinic. It ain't werewolf friendly, but she is. I'll give her a call. See if maybe she can come check Dean out.'

'That'd be good,' Sam agreed. His voice was a little slurred from the whisky and lack of food.

'You hungry, son?'

'No. Not really.'

Bobby got up and took Sam's glass. 'How 'bout you take yourself back downstairs and stretch out beside your brother and crash 'till morning.' He put a heavy, warm hand on the back of Sam's neck and squeezed. 'You're safe here, son. Get some rest.'

——

Bobby's friend from the clinic showed up early the next morning, stopping by before her shift.

Dean had only just made it through the shower and was still finger combing his damp hair when he came up the stairs, drawn by the scent of fresh black coffee, and found a stranger perched on the edge of the kitchen table.

'There's the papa-to-be!' she said with a bright smile.

Sam rolled his eyes and fairly swooped in between Dean and the bright, bubbly blonde in lavender scrubs, grabbing at Dean's shoulder to hold/steady/restrain him. He put a hand over Dean's heart, pressed gently.

'Bobby called her. She's safe. She's just here to check you out. He thought it might help,' Sam said in a low voice.

Dean scowled past Sam's shoulder at the girl who appeared way too young to be of any use to the medical community or anyone else for that matter. He glared at her and then up at Sam. 

'Do I get a cup of coffee for putting up with this?' he asked.

Sam almost laughed with relief. 'We'll see.'

Dean just huffed a breath and folded his arms across his chest. Sam stepped back a little. 

'Jess, this is Dean. Dean, Jess.'

Dean said nothing, but did have the decency to take Jess's hand with her offered apology and very sincere smile. 'I'm sorry. I can come on a little…strong sometimes, and I just really like babies.'

Dean shot Sam a look. 'She does realize…?'

'Yeah, she does,' Sam assured.

'I brought a portable sonogram machine, 'Jess said. 'Bobby said it might be helpful for us to get a look at the little one?'

Dean threw Sam another questioning look.

'You were born in your human form, Dean. If the pup inside you isn't actually in its wolf form, then we're safe as houses. Bobby thought it would be a good starting point,' Sam said quietly.

Dean just nodded and gestured for Jess to lead the way to wherever her equipment was.

She had Dean stretch out on the couch, propped at an angle with several pillows. Sam sat on the arm of the couch behind him and kept a hand on his shoulder the whole time.

'This is gonna be a little cold, so…' She gently and slowly pushed up Dean's t-shirt and then squeezed a dollop of clear, cold gel just below his navel. 'You guys want to know what it is, if I can see?'

'Um, yeah? I guess?' Sam said, a little shocked. He looked down at Dean.

Dean gave a single nod. 'Sure.'

Jess smiled and then flipped a couple of switches on the the compact bunch of electronics she had packed in a padded bag and pulled out a flat-ended wand and used it to smear the cold gel across Dean's taut skin. She watched the screen in front of her intently, moving the wand around, pressing in at certain spots, moving it again.

'It's a little murky,' she said uncertainly.

'That's probably a good sign,' Bobby said from the front door where he was stomping dust off his boots. 'Means you can't see through the amniotic sac. Should be a tough mother, nearly opaque in a werewolf.'

'Well, it's definitely not opaque,' Jess said, and Sam's hand clenched on Dean's shoulder. Dean silently reached back to squeeze it and lace their fingers together.

'Can you see two legs and two arms, or four paws,' Dean said in a flat voice.

Jess squinted again. 'I'd say from the shadows that we're definitely looking at four paws.'

Sam shuddered on the arm of the couch and covered his mouth with his free hand. Dean looked up at him.

'It's okay, Sam. It's gonna be okay,' he whispered. Sam gave a tiny, jerking shake of his head.

Jess looked at him a little warily and then at Dean. 'Is this a bad thing?'

Dean just looked back at her, face impassive. 'Can you tell the sex?'

She frowned at the screen again, moved the wand around for another minute or so, then sat back with a sigh. 'I'm sorry. Not with any certainty. I really wouldn't even want to guess because I just can't get a clear enough picture.'

Dean nodded. Sam slumped on the arm of the couch, turning away a little. Jess looked from one to the other of them and then back to Bobby, her expression clearly confused and worried.

Bobby gave her a gentle smile and bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. 'It's okay, sweetie. You tried. And you helped, you did.'

She nodded a little uneasily, stripped off her gloves, and pulled a towel from her bag to gently wipe away the mess of gel on Dean's belly. He wasn't taking any notice of her. His eyes were only for Sam. She straightened his t-shirt for him and sat patiently while they communed together in whatever quiet sorrow was passing between them. 

Finally, Sam got up off the couch and went outside on the porch. Dean sat up, made to follow, but Bobby put a hand on his shoulder.

'Let him go, son. Just give him a minute.'

Dean nodded and sat back, eyes never straying from Sam's form through the the window.

Jess cleared her throat a little.  'Bobby said you were having trouble with being nauseous and sick most of the time.' She reached in her bag. 'I brought these. Take them as needed. They're anti-emetics. As bad as it sounds like you've been, I'm guessing they won't be a cure, but they might help a little, help you keep some food down. You do look pretty thin. I'd recommend as many calories as you can handle from now until you deliver, and hydrate. Keep drinking fluids.'

Dean took the bottle and nodded his thanks.

Jess packed up her stuff and just as she was leaving, Sam came back in, held the door open for her.

'Thank you, Jess,' he said, voice steady now. 'We appreciate it.'

She looked up into his face, saw something that made her want to cry, and could only nod her good-byes before passing by him out the door.

Dean came up behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. 'It's not the end of the world, Sammy. It's no better or worse than what we thought it would be.'

Sam nodded, eyes closing to keep back another rush of tears. 'I know. I was just hoping…'

'Yeah. Me, too.'

Bobby let them have their moment, but then he stepped forward and clapped them both on the shoulders.

'You boys hungry? I got eggs and bacon and may even be convinced to do some flapjacks. Dean, you pop a couple of those pills Jess gave you and come get a decent meal down your gullet. That pup of yours needs all the energy she can get, and so do you.'

Dean smiled a little grimly and followed Bobby into the kitchen, throwing back over his shoulder, 

'And I'm gettin' my promised cup of coffee, too!'

Sam forced a smile at that and followed a little more slowly.

——

Sam put the rocker together the afternoon after they arrived and installed it in a corner of the front porch that stayed mostly in the shade all day. Dean wasn't cracked about being forced to be outside in the fresh air quite so much, but it kept him from brooding in their reinforced bunker of a room, though Sam was careful to allow him plenty of time there are well to rebuild his nest and get comfortable with the room where he would birth their pup. After a few days, even Bobby was no longer allowed inside.

A week passed quietly. The medicine Jess had given Dean did help. He was at least able to keep enough down that he stopped dropping weight, though he couldn't manage to gain any back. The pressure in his pelvis increased almost exponentially, and he started having random contractions that set Sam so on edge that every time Dean so much as let out a harsh breath, Sam was suddenly by his elbow to see if anything was wrong.

'Dude, I swear…' Dean threatened one afternoon Sam was being particularly clingy and overbearing. 'Just. Back off, would you?'

'No, I won't!' Sam huffed. 'The whole point of Bobby or I one hanging around is so that you aren't alone when you go into labor.'

'Yeah, but I have to actually _go_ _into labor_ first,' Dean said. He shifted in the rocker, rolling his hips in order to try and relieve the immense pressure he'd been feeling all morning. 'And it's not like you can stop that.'

'I know I can't,' Sam said softly.

Dean sighed, shifted again, swore softly and then nearly moaned out loud when Sam moved around behind him to dig his thumbs deep into the muscles of Dean's lower back and work at them with a constant pressure.

'Fuck, that feels good, Sam,' Dean groaned, leaning over and bracing his arms on the rail to give Sam plenty of room to work.

'Glad I can at least do this for you.'

Dean straightened a little, looked back over his shoulder. 'Hey.'

'Yeah?' Sam glanced up, met his brother's sincere, unwavering gaze.

'You do plenty for me,' Dean said. 'And I appreciate it. I really do. I guess I'm just a pretty cranky pregnant person.'

Sam smiled. 'Yeah, well, I suppose I wouldn't be much better if I had to sit around feeling like I had a bowling ball trying to crush my pelvis most of the time.'

'Yeah, not the most fun part,' Dean agreed. He hissed sharply and put a hand to the side of his belly.

'Dean?' Sam stilled behind him.

'Just another cramp, Sammy. It's fine,' Dean assured him, breathing out slowly against the clenching pain. 'Either that or she's trying out for gymnastics early.'

Sam knelt beside him. 'Can I?'

'Sure.' Dean leaned to the side, so Sam could spread his palm against the now very prominent swell of his brother's pregnant belly.

Sam had tried to keep to a general hands-off policy with Dean, especially out in the open, because whether or not he vocalized it, he still wasn't incredibly comfortable with having his belly pawed at by Sam or anyone else. Not that any one else would risk it.

Sam felt the tumble and push of their pup under his palm, and it made his stomach flip and his heart do a funny skip-trip beat in his chest.

'God, she is so going to have you wrapped around her little finger, or under her paw—thumb—whatever,' Dean mused with a grin at the look of complete awe on his brother's face. 'You are such a sap.'

Sam just grinned back and leaned up to kiss Dean on the mouth.

Dean kissed him back, deep and slow, licking a little at his lips.

'Miss that,' he whispered.

'Me, too,' Sam said. He rested their foreheads together for a moment, just enjoying the closeness and the constant feel of movement under his hand until Dean gave him a gentle shove.

'Okay, enough touchy-feely, get back to working out those kinks,' Dean demanded playfully.

Sam laughed and shifted around to dig his thumbs into Dean's back again.

'Jesus _Christ_!' Dean suddenly swore and lurched forward, gasping and pressing his palm hard against the under-curve of his belly. 

'Dean!' Sam was at his elbow, steadying him so he didn't tip out of the chair.

Dean grabbed at the rail, knuckles gone white, face pale and suddenly sweaty. 

'Sammy,' he gasped, breathless. 'I think—I think that one was for real.'

Sam felt the bottom go out of his stomach as Dean hunched forward again, groaning through another sharp pain. When it passed and Dean could breathe again, he grabbed at Sam's hand and squeezed it hard.

'It's time, Sam.'


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gives birth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear up any confusion anyone may have, the crisis here is being caused by the pup's amniotic sac breaking before it's born, which, unlike in humans, should not happen, as puppies are born still inside theirs. This may not constitute the singular life threatening event I'm making it into, but this is fiction, so. (I am also no animal expert, so please don't lynch me for any glaring errors!)

If Sam had thought his brother was stubborn before, Dean in labor was on a whole other level.

After the first few contractions that left him sweaty, breathless, and groaning, Dean more or less got a kind of handle on the pain, and he did it so well that Sam could only tell when he was having a contraction by the thin set of his mouth and the fact that a really bad one made him close his eyes for a moment or two while his nostrils flared on a particularly heavy outlet of breath.

He started out by not letting Sam take him inside when they figured out he was actually _in_ labor. He insisted on staying out on the porch in the rocker for at least a good two hours until the sun got high enough that the heat started to breakdown that ironclad will Dean had shored up against the pain. Once Sam convinced him to come inside, though, he wouldn't go downstairs to their room, but instead told Sam to put in a movie on his laptop and come sit with him while they watched. 

Sam tried to time the contractions by the way Dean's back muscles tensed where he rested against his chest, in the V of Sam's legs, for most of the first movie and into the second; but it wasn't entirely accurate, and all the watching of his watch got on Dean's nerves so that he eventually stripped it off Sam's wrist and dropped it behind the couch.

Sam traded off with Bobby at about four in the afternoon so he could go into the kitchen and get a sandwich.

Bobby smirked at him on his way out toward the library, bottle of beer in hand, and a glass of water for Dean. 

'Relax, son, you've got a long road to haul. Don't start gettin' wound up now.'

Sam huffed an irritated breath. 'I just want him to-to focus, or pay attention, or something! He needs to—'

'He needs to do exactly what _he_ needs to do,' Bobby cut in quietly. 'This is his body, Sam. He knows better than you or me what's goin' on with it, and I guarantee you, that ultra-calm exterior he's got goin' right now? It ain't gonna last. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and he's still got control, but it won't stay that way. That's when he's gonna need you; need your calm; need your strength. So, _you_ need to settle down, and let him handle this until he asks for your help. Got it?'

Sam nodded, properly chastised, and Bobby smiled, reaching out to clap a hand on his arm and squeeze in reassurance. 

'It's gonna be fine, Sam. You'll see.'

——

It was about nine o'clock that night when Dean's facade did finally crack, just like Bobby said it would.

Sam had lost count of the number of movies that he'd put in and taken out of his laptop, the number of laps Dean had insisted on making by himself all around the first floor of the house, and they were pushing the twelve hour mark from when his labor had started when he suddenly let out a long, low moan, curled in on himself, and his fingers hooked into Sam's thigh and squeezed hard enough that he was sure he'd have bruises when next he looked.

'Dean?' Sam asked softly, tentatively.

Dean hunched forward again, eyes squeezed shut, mouth a thin white line, fingers digging. 'Sam, I can't—' 

He cut off on a half-startled moan, body tensing up impossibly tight with the pain.

'Shh. Shhhh,' Sam soothed, running a hand back over his brother's sweat damp hair. 'It's okay. You don't have to. Just breathe. Relax.' Dean shifted a little, tried to follow Sam's instruction. 'Ready to go downstairs?'

Dean gave a short, sharp nod.

'Okay.'

It took them a good ten minutes and one stop between the library and kitchen and one on the stairs to let Dean's contractions pass, before they managed to get him downstairs. Bobby caught Sam's shoulder just before he went in the room.

'There's a comm on the desk if you need anything,' he said, tilting his chin toward a small gray panel. 'I'll keep my ears open. I'm not leaving the house until this is over, and I've got a call in to Jess. She's on her way, just in case.'

'Even if she could help, I don't think he'll let her in here with him,' Sam said skeptically. 

'We'll see,' Bobby said. Then he lowered his voice so only Sam could hear him. 'You're looking for fluid. There's bound to be a little, and some blood too, and that's natural; but you see any sudden gushes, then you've got trouble.'

Sam sucked in a breath, felt the color drain from his face, but he just nodded.

'Anything— _anything_ —either of you boys need,' Bobby repeated. 'You just holler.'

'Thanks,' Sam said earnestly.

Sam helped Dean to the bed, steadied him while another contraction gripped his belly, and then lowered him down to the soft nest of pillows, quilt, and blankets that Dean had collected and created for just this moment.

'We're going to have to get you out of your clothes eventually,' Sam said. 'You want to just do that now?'

'Not just yet,' Dean said with a tight, thin lipped smile. 'Gotta try and keep some of my dignity intact as long as I can.'

'Jesus, Dean…' Sam shook his head and smiled, but then Dean was curling forward around his belly again, groaning deep and long and Sam's hand was going numb in his brother's crushing grip as he tried to make it through to the other side of the contraction. 

'Dean, breathe,' Sam urged. 'Remember to breathe.'

'You try and fucking breathe when your muscles are trying to force soothing the size of a small melon out of you the hard way!' Dean snapped.

Sam just brushed his brother's hair back and kissed his temple and stayed quiet while his belly got hard with another contraction, but this time Dean made a good solid effort to pant through it.

' 'M sorry, Sammy,' Dean moaned softly. 'Didn't mean to snap at you.'

'Sure, you did.' Sam smiled softly. 'And it's okay. I won't take it personally.'

'You better not,' Dean started with a smirk, but then his gusto seemed to suddenly fail him, and he threaded his fingers with Sam's tightly. ' 'Cause I need you, little brother. God, I need you right now.'

Sam swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and squeezed back against Dean's fingers. 'I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I promise.'

Dean nodded and tensed again as another contraction gripped him.

——

It was hard to keep track of time in a room with no windows, and it really didn't matter anyway, because the only time Sam and Dean were aware of now was the dwindling minutes between Dean's contractions.

'God, Sammy, I can't do this!' Dean yelled out as he dropped back into the pillows out of one of his worst contractions yet. He was naked now and sweating and shaking constantly with pain and exhaustion. 

'You can, Dean. You can do this,' Sam said firmly as he wrung out a cool damp cloth and wiped Dean's face and chest down, trying to offer him what little comfort he could. 'You're ready. All you have to do is let her come.'

Dean's contractions were nearly on top of each other, and Sam expected at any moment he would start feeling the urge to bear down. Jess and Bobby were camped out of sight but within earshot around the stairwell now that Dean was getting so close.

Sam had kept a watchful eye out for any sudden, large amounts of fluid with each one of Dean's contractions, but had seen nothing, and he was almost feeling like they would make it through this in the free and clear.

'Sam?' Dean hunched up again, grabbing for his knees. 'Oh… _fuck_!'

He put his chin to his chest and leaned forward into the contraction, grunting deeply. Sam took hold of his arms, helped him stay forward through the push, watched the straining bulge between Dean's thighs as his body tried to stretch to accommodate the pup he was birthing.

Dean dropped back again, panting hard, face red, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. Sam leaned up between his knees and kissed him very softly on the lips and then wiped his face and chest and shoulders with the cool cloth yet again. 

'S-Sam this isn't working,' Dean gasped. 'I can't…she's not coming…'

'Shhh,' Sam murmured. 'She is. I promise you she is. You need to change position? Get up on your knees maybe, and let gravity help?'

Dean nodded tiredly, and Sam reached to help him roll forward and up, but another contraction bunched up in his lower back and pushed around to the front of his belly, bringing with it the undeniable urge to push. Dean's fingers hooked into Sam's shoulders, and he rolled forward, using Sam for leverage and bore down hard until he was completely out of air and the contraction finally released him.

Sam let him back to rest on the pillows and sat back himself. 'That's good, Dean. God, that's good. You're getting closer. You really are. You—'

Sam nearly choked on his own words when his eyes fell on the large, wet, straw colored stain between his brother's legs and the thin trickle of fluid still flowing out of him. 

'Bobby!'

Jess and Bobby were both at the door in a heartbeat. Bobby could see from his vantage point what had Sam so suddenly panicked, and he went pale as his gaze rose to meet Sam's.

'Sam?' Dean was fighting to try and sit up, to get Sam's attention. 'Sam, what's wrong?'

Sam let out a slow breath, tried to force his racing heart to slow. This wasn't a sure thing. Just because his mother had died, didn't mean Dean had to. Just because _he_ had clawed his way out did not mean their daughter would. Nothing was a sure bet in this. Nothing. Sam had to hold onto that. 

It was the only hope he had.

He rolled forward on his knees, pressing Dean gently back. 'It's fine, Dean. Everything's fine. Just focus on the contractions.'

'Everything is not fine, Sam,' Dean said, voice already hitching hard as the next contraction built up. 'You were always…such a…fucking horrible…liar. God _dammit_!'

Dean curled forward around his belly, hands on his knees again, gripping so hard his fingers went all white with the strain, and grunted into the push. Sam watched with wide, amazed eyes, as Dean's body bulged, stretched, and finally opened to show him a small, dark wet patch of fur.

Dean collapsed into the pillows, but his hands went to his belly, clutching hard.

'Dean?'

Dean rolled to his side, arm wrapping around the low, hard, swell of his middle. 'Sammy, somethin's wrong…Jesus! Somethin's wrong!'

Sam looked down and say a trickle of blood coming from between Dean's thighs. He blanched.

'Bobby, there's blood.'

'Hell with it,' Bobby swore, and barged into the room, dragging Jess with him.

Dean was in too much pain to even notice his safe haven had been breached by unfamiliar scents. He was curled in on himself and gasping. Sam crawled up the bed, leaving Jess to attend to whatever was going on between his brother's legs now. He molded himself to Dean's back and wrapped his arms around him.

Dean grabbed at him, holding fiercely to the arm Sam brought across his chest. 'Sammy, she's dying… I can feel it. She's dying! You have to get her out! Get her out now!'

Sam rocked Dean against him, looped his other arm down next to Dean's where it was cradling his belly. He cast a desperate look at Jess, who was pushing Dean's leg out of the way to get a closer look. She lifted up, shook her head. 'She's in the canal, Sam. The only thing we can do at this point is let things happen.'

'But the fluid…the blood…?'

'The sac broke, yes,' Jess confirmed. 'But she's compressed in the birth canal. She can't move. And there's not too much blood, nothing dangerous, yet. She will start to go into distress, though, in just a few minutes, so we need to get her born. Soon.'

Sam tucked his face into Dean's neck, tightened his arms, and whispered, 'You hear that, Dean. She's okay. She's still okay, but she needs her daddy's help. You have to help her, Dean. You have to push.'

'I can't, Sam…' Dean almost whined, but his body was already tensing with the contraction, tucking in and bearing down with the pain.

'Shit.'

Bobby's softly muttered curse brought Sam's head swinging around. 'What? What!'

Dean fell out of the contraction with a sharp, pained shout, and both hands went to the bottom curve of his belly, pressing in, like they were trying to apply pressure to a wound.

'Dean? Dean, what is it?' Sam was starting to get frantic, could feel the panic setting into his bones, as Dean cried out and doubled up, legs falling together as he tried to curl up against the pain. Sam looked back at Jess, who was struggling to reposition herself and get Dean to open his legs again. 

'That's not a contraction. What is that? What's wrong!' he demanded.

'She's struggling, Sam,' Jess explained. 'I think she's getting purchase with one of her back feet on the uterine wall. He's bleeding.'

'Fuck,' Sam bit out. He grabbed hold of Dean's inner thigh and pried it up, let Jess get a good grip, then locked his arms around his brother and rolled with him, dragging him up so that he was propped in the V of Sam's legs and supported against Sam's chest.

'Dean, you listen to me. You listen good. You've got seconds—and I mean _seconds_ —to get this pup born before she rips you up.' He mashed his lips to Dean's ear. 'You fucking listen to me, big brother…I _will not live without you_. You hear me? I won't, and you are not fucking dying on me. I won't allow it. Now, push, godddamit, and push hard!'

Dean's body was already pitching forward, bearing down, and Sam went with him, moving them like they were one person. He held and supported, shifted weight and took it, kept track of their breaths and kept their hearts in time with one another.

'That's it, Dean!' Jess said, patting his inner thigh encouragingly. 'That's it. That's good. Now, give me another one.'

Sam looked down at her, eyes pleading, and Jess pitched her voice low, so that he was almost just reading her lips. 'It has to be now. This is our last shot.'

'S-Sam,' Dean gasped, writhing and whimpering as the pup in his belly tried again to tear at his insides. 'You take her…y-you take care of her, Sammy. You promise—you save her!'

Dean arched and pulled against Sam's hold. Sam pulled back, settled them both for one moment, held them in the calm before the contraction built to its peak. He kissed gently behind Dean's ear, breathed out a soft, soft breath, and whispered,

'I'm saving both of you, Dean. I just won't have it any other way.'

Dean's eyes flicked open and up and for one second they were intensely clear. He smiled, so tired, so worn, but so very much Dean.

'Stubborn…' he breathed. ' 'Till the goddamn end,'.

The contraction was fierce, so much so that Sam could feel the pressure and tightening in Dean's lower back where they were pressed against his groin. He let Dean guide him in his movements, but Sam provided the strength, the leverage, and the support while Dean funneled every last ounce of energy he had into birthing their pup.

There was a flurry of motion between Dean's legs, Jess' face went white and taut for a second, and Sam felt like the whole world had come to a very quiet and very still ending when Dean sank back into his chest, spent and so still that it sent a chill down Sam's spine.

 _I hope you don't live to regret this…When he dies bloody, in your arms…It's the hate and the guilt you won't be able to live with, not the grief…_ I _am what you will become…_

Sam closed his eyes and breathed, just breathed into that one eternal moment when everything was silent.

_Please…please don't let them die._

'Sam? Sam, open your eyes.'

Jess was coaxing him, her voice coming from very near. He fluttered his lids open, looked up at her. She was smiling. She wouldn't be smiling if…

'Dean?'

'He's fine. I think we've got a few minor tears because he was pushing so hard and so fast, and one of her back claws did catch. That's what was causing him so much pain, well, besides the obvious, but he'll be fine.' She lifted up on her knees and held a small bundle out to them. 'Now…you want to see your little girl?'

'It's a girl?' Sam asked.

Jess looked a little confused. 'Yeah. I thought…even though I couldn't see on the sonogram that you…you mean you didn't really know?'

Sam laughed, it was tired and just a tiny bit hysterical. 'No. We really didn't.' He dropped his cheek to rest on Dean's hair. 'It was just what we hoped for.'

'Well, good job then!' Jess grinned. 'Dean?'

Dean was exhausted, his heart still pounding from his last efforts, his entire body shaking toward meltdown against Sam's, but he reached out to take the bundle from Jess and cuddled it close to his chest. He pulled back the edge of the blanket with the tip of his finger and his breath caught in awe.

'Jesus, Sam…she's beautiful.'

Sam set his chin in Dean's shoulder, like he used to do years ago, and looked down at the small, slender face peeking out of the blanket. Her eyes were open, and they were wide and bright and gleaming blue, ringed in the most vivid green that Sam had ever seen. Her fur was a dark, rich, chocolate brown and he could see the barest hint of a blond ruff under her chin. The very tips of her ears were nearly white. He reached out a finger and smoothed it over the velvety fur between her eyes. She made a soft, tiny noise and pushed into his touch, twisting her head and opening her mouth, trying to get hold of his finger, which she finally did, to suckle on it contentedly.

'What'd I tell you,' Dean said with a sly, tired smile. 

Sam huffed a soft laugh. 'Technically, she's wrapped around mine.'

Dean shrugged. 'Whatever, dude.'

Sam just smiled. He had a feeling, all technicalities aside, that his brother was absolutely right. This tiny little life, only minutes old, already had him hook, line, and sinker.

——

'Dean, we _have_ to give her a name,' Sam said.

He was sitting on the porch with his back against the railing, looking up at Dean who was gently rocking back and forth with their daughter nested in a soft blanket and curled in his lap, and stroking the soft, soft fur on the top of her head. The late morning sun was warm at his back and there was a cool breeze coming down from the north.

'I know,' Dean said. 'I told you. I want to call her Iron Maiden because she's tough and she was born in a room that was practically an iron bunker.'

'Dean, that was the name of a rock band and a medieval torture device. Not to mention, it sounds silly,' Sam said. 'We're not naming her that.'

'Fine,' Dean pouted. 'What's your top pick?'

Sam hesitated a second and picked at a splinter in the board by his leg. 'Why don't we name her after mom?'

'No.' 

Dean's tone was sharp and final. Sam looked up to see his brother's face pinched and closed off.

'Dean, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—'

'It's fine, Sam, just…no. We're not naming her after mom.'

'Okay.' Sam thought a moment. 'We could name her Bella?'

'Dude, that was the name of your Junior prom date,' Dean scowled.

'What? She was pretty, and smart, too.'

'She had braces, and ears you could parasail with,' Dean countered.

'Fine! Jesus, we won't name her Bella. What about—'

'Jess!'

Jess came bounding up the steps behind Sam and stopped to lean over and press a gentle kiss to the top of their daughter's head. 

'How about naming her Jess? I did help, you know, deliver her and all,' she teased.

'Much as I love you, and will forever be grateful to you,' Dean said. 'No. We aren't naming her after you.'

Jess just shrugged and kept on grinning.

'You have a middle name, Jess?' Sam asked.

She pulled a face. 'Yeah, but I hate it.'

'What is it?'

'Eliza.'

'Eliza…' Sam tested the name and glanced at Dean. He shrugged.

'We could call her Liz for short.'

'Or Ellie,' Sam said. He leaned forward so that he could lay his head on Dean's knee and look into their daughter's face. 'We could call her Ellie.'

Dean contemplated it for a moment. 'Ellie. Okay, I can live with that. Ellie it is.'

'Jess, meet Ellie.' Sam grinned up at her. 'Thank you.'

Jess laughed and pulled open the door. 'I only came by to give the little lady a check up, but you're welcome just the same. I'll be in the kitchen. Bring her in when you're ready.'

'Well, now that that all important matter is settled,' Dean said, and scooped the newly christened Ellie into the crook of his arm. He winced a little as he moved to get up from the rocker. Sam reached up and grasped his wrist to tug him back down.

'Dean. How are you?' he asked quietly.

'I'm fine, Sam. Good as gold.'

'Dean…'

Dean sighed and shifted Ellie to his shoulder, stroking her back as she started to stir. 'I'm okay, Sam, really. Maybe a little sore from time to time, but that'll get better.'

'Dean…please.'

It had been Bobby's suggestion. Sam had wanted to wait until Dean was more coherent and less tired and had time to think about it, but Dean had said it would be easier while he was all 'out there for everyone and God to see' anyway, and Jess was already there and could easily accomplish it under Bobby's direction.

'Sam, it's okay,' Dean said, sincerely this time. 'It was my decision.'

'I know, but you weren't…all there when it was made.'

'Yeah, man, I was. I was very much there,' he said. He reached out and cupped Sam's face. 'It's better this way. Don't know why the hell Dad didn't just do it in the first place. Would have saved everybody a whole hell of a lot of grief.'

Sam frowned, a tiny bloom of hurt opening in his chest. 'But we wouldn't have Ellie, if he had.'

Dean tucked the tiny pup closer into his shoulder and leaned forward to rest his forehead against Sam's. 'Not what I meant, Sammy. And no, I'm really glad he didn't think of it, otherwise we _wouldn't_ have Ellie…I might not even have you.'

'You'd have always had me,' Sam said, sliding his hand up to cup the back of Dean's neck. 'You do have me.'

'Yeah, I do,' Dean murmured a half second before Sam's lips pressed up against his, all warm and soft and wanting. Dean felt his blood warm and start to thrum with a low level need in his veins.

'You are seriously dangerous for my good health, Sammy,' Dean breathed into their kiss.

'I know, but you love me anyway,' Sam teased.

Dean smiled. 'Oh, I do. I so do, little brother.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! We all made it to the end! My hands may not recover for a good two or three weeks, but... 
> 
> This is probably the single biggest, fastest run to a finish I have EVER made, and I want to thank every single one of you who reads, leaves kudos, or comments on this story: THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT A DIFFERENCE YOU'VE MADE!!! I could not possibly have made this happen without all of your lovely support :)))


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